New Age
New Age is a range of spiritual or metaphysical practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although it is characterized as a religious movement, its adherents typically see it as unifying the Mind, Body, and Spirit, and rarely use the term "New Age" themselves. Scholars often call it the New Age movement, although others contest this term and suggest it is better seen as a milieu or zeitgeist.
As a form of Western esotericism, the New Age drew heavily upon esoteric traditions such as the occultism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
Definition
There is no central authority within the New Age phenomenon that can determine what counts as New Age and what does not. Many of those groups and individuals who could analytically be categorised as part of the New Age reject the term New Age in reference to themselves. New Age may be considered an umbrella term that includes a wide variety of groups united by their expectation of a universal change coming to fruition through the development of human potential.
Primary aspects
Despite its eclectic nature, the New Age has several main currents:
- Exploration of human consciousness
- Clairvoyance
- Meditation
- Channeling
- Chakras
- Reincarnation
- Astral projection
- Cosmic phenomena
- UFOs
- Alien abduction
- Crop circles
- Holistic health
- Crystal healing
- Yoga
- Enneagram of Personality
- Alternative medicine
- Esoteric knowledge
History
As a form of Western esotericism, the New Age has antecedents that stretch back to southern Europe in Late Antiquity. Following the Age of Enlightenment in 18th-century Europe, new esoteric ideas developed in response to the development of scientific rationality. Scholars call this new esoteric trend "occultism", and it became a key factor in the development of the worldview from which the New Age emerged.
Early influences
One of the earliest influences on the New Age was the Swedish 18th-century Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg, who professed the ability to communicate with angels, demons, and spirits. Swedenborg's attempt to unite science and religion and his prediction of a coming era in particular have been cited as ways that he prefigured the New Age.
Another early influence was the late 18th and early 19th century German physician and hypnotist Franz Mesmer, who wrote about the existence of a force known as "animal magnetism" running through the human body. The establishment of Spiritualism, an occult religion influenced by both Swedenborgianism and Mesmerism, in the U.S. during the 1840s has also been identified as a precursor to the New Age, in particular through its rejection of established Christianity, representing itself as a scientific approach to religion, and its emphasis on channeling spirit entities.
Theosophy
Indian Swami Vivekananda, an adherent of the philosophy of Vedanta who first brought Hinduism to the West in the late 19th century, directly led to the development of New Thought and Theosophy.
The Theosophical Society, an occult group co-founded by the Russian Helena Blavatsky in the late 19th century. In her books Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), Blavatsky wrote that her Society was conveying the essence of all world religions, and it thus emphasized a focus on comparative religion. Serving as a partial bridge between Theosophical ideas and those of the New Age was the American esotericist Edgar Cayce, who founded the Association for Research and Enlightenment.
New Thought holds that Infinite Intelligence, or God, is everywhere, spirit is the totality of real things, true human selfhood is divine, divine thought is a force for good, sickness originates in the mind, and "right thinking" has a healing effect.
UFO religions
New Age's direct antecedents can be found in the UFO religions of the 1950s. Many of these new religious movements had strong apocalyptic beliefs regarding a coming new age, which they typically asserted would be brought about by contact with extraterrestrials.
UFO religions generally deal with belief in communication with extraterrestrial beings. In these groups, individuals believe that communication between aliens and humans can take the form of physical contact, telepathy, and astral projection. Typically the groups believe that humanity will be saved by these aliens when humans are educated as to a better way to live life. Scientology is considered an offshoot of these groups.
Counter-culture
From a historical perspective, the New Age phenomenon is most associated with the counterculture of the 1960s. George Harrison's adoption of Hindu philosophy and Indian instrumentation in his songs with the Beatles in the mid-1960s, together with the band's highly publicised study of Transcendental Meditation, launched the Human Potential Movement that subsequently became New Age.
Gnostic philosopher Samael Aun Weor declared 4 February 1962 to be the beginning of the "Age of Aquarius," heralded by the alignment of the first six planets, the Sun, the Moon and the constellation Aquarius. In his view, the Aquarian age is supposed to herald a world ruled by secretive, power-hungry elites seeking absolute power over others; that knowledge in the Aquarian age will only be valued for its ability to win wars; that knowledge and science will be abused, not industry and trade; and that the Aquarian age will be another dark age in which religion is considered offensive.
1970s
In the latter part of the 1970s, the New Age expanded to cover a wide variety of alternative spiritual and religious beliefs and practices, not all of which explicitly held to the belief in the Age of Aquarius, but were nevertheless widely recognized as broadly similar in their search for "alternatives" to mainstream society.
Stores that came to be known as "New Age shops" opened up, selling related books, magazines, jewelry, and crystals, and they were typified by the playing of New Age music and the smell of incense. This probably influenced several thousand small metaphysical bookstores that increasingly defined themselves as "New Age bookstores," while New Age titles came to be increasingly available from mainstream bookstores.
Core works propagating New Age ideas published during this time included:
- Jeane Dixon's The Call to Glory (1971)
- Sybil Leek's My Life in Astrology (1972)
- Helen Schucman A Course in Miracles (1975)
- David Spangler Revelation: The Birth of a New Age (1977)
- Linda Goodman Sun Signs (1968) and Love Signs (1978)
Eclecticism and self-spirituality
New Age religiosity is typified by its eclecticism. Generally believing that there is no one true way to pursue spirituality, New Agers develop their own worldview by combining bits and pieces to form their own individual mix in pursuit of a spirituality without borders or confining dogmas.
As part of its eclecticism, the New Age draws ideas from many different cultural and spiritual traditions from across the world, often legitimising this approach by reference to a vague claim about underlying global unity. In reality, this cafeteria method of pulling what works and discarding what does not is similar to syncretic religions such as African diaspora religions and the methods of the ancient Egyptians, who readily integrated foreign deities and beliefs into their own religious practices.
Theology and cosmology
A belief in some form of higher power is integral to New Age ideas, although understandings of this divine force vary between traditions.
New Age literature nevertheless displays recurring traits in its depiction of the divine:
- The first is the idea that it is holistic, thus frequently being described with such terms as an "Ocean of Oneness", "Infinite Spirit", "Primal Stream", "One Essence", and "Universal Principle".
- A second trait is the characterisation of divinity as "Mind", "Consciousness", and "Intelligence."
- A third is the description of divinity as a form of "energy."
- A fourth trait is the characterisation of divinity as a "life force," the essence of which is creativity.
- A fifth is the concept that divinity consists of love.
The New Age movement typically views the material universe as a meaningful illusion, which humans should try to use constructively rather than focus on escaping into other spiritual realms. This physical world is hence seen as "a domain for learning and growth" after which the human soul might pass on to higher levels of existence.
Connection with non-human entities
New Age literature often refers to benevolent non-human spirit-beings who are interested in humanity's spiritual development; these are variously referred to as angels, God, gods and goddesses, Ascended Masters, spirit guides, extraterrestrials, devas, historical figures, the collective unconscious, elementals, or nature spirits. New Age angelology is nevertheless unsystematic, reflecting the idiosyncrasies of individual authors. The figure of Jesus Christ is often mentioned within New Age literature as a mediating principle between divinity and humanity, as well as an exemplar of a spiritually advanced human being.
Although not present in every New Age group, a core belief within the milieu is in channeling. This is the idea that humans beings, sometimes (although not always) in a state of trance, can act "as a channel of information from sources other than their normal selves."
In this respect, it is similar to practices in Afro-Brazilian religions such as Candomblé.
The Age of Aquarius
New Age thought typically envisions the world as developing through cosmological cycles that can be identified through astrology. It adopts this concept from Theosophy, although often presents it in a looser and more eclectic way than is found in Theosophical teaching.
New Age literature often proposes that humanity once lived in an age of spiritual wisdom. In the writings of New Agers like Edgar Cayce, the ancient period of spiritual wisdom is associated with concepts of supremely-advanced societies living on lost continents such as Atlantis, Lemuria, and Mu, as well as the idea that ancient societies like those of Ancient Egypt were far more technologically advanced than modern scholarship accepts.
Although characterised as being a negative period for humanity, our current Age of Pisces is an important learning experience for the species.
A common belief is that humanity has entered, or is coming to enter, a new period known as the Age of Aquarius. Depending on the philosophy, this will either be an age of struggles or a New Age of love, joy, peace, abundance, and harmony. In accepting this belief in a coming new age, the milieu shares some similarities with apocalyptic or "Doomsday" movements.
Healing and alternative medicine
The general New Age ethos is that health is the natural state for the human being and that illness is a disruption of that natural balance. Hence, New Age therapies seek to heal "illness" as a general concept that includes physical, mental, and spiritual aspects; in doing so it critiques mainstream Western medicine for simply attempting to cure disease, and thus has an affinity with most forms of traditional medicine. Its focus of self-spirituality has led to the emphasis of self-healing, although also present are ideas on healing both others and the Earth itself.
A very wide array of methods are utilised within the holistic health movement, with some of the most common including: acupuncture, reiki, biofeedback, chiropractic, yoga, applied kinesiology, homeopathy, aromatherapy, iridology, massage and other forms of bodywork, meditation and visualisation, nutritional therapy, psychic healing, herbal medicine, healing using crystals, metals, music, chromotherapy, and reincarnation therapy.
Ethics and afterlife
There is no ethical cohesion within the New Age phenomenon, the central ethical tenet of the New Age is to cultivate one's own divine potential. Given that the movement's holistic interpretation of the universe prohibits a belief in a dualistic good and evil, negative events that happen are interpreted not as the result of evil but as lessons designed to teach an individual and enable them to advance spiritually. It rejects the Christian emphasis on sin and guilt, believing that these generate fear and thus negativity, which then hinder spiritual evolution.
The question of death and afterlife is not a pressing problem requiring an answer in the New Age. A belief in reincarnation is very common, where it is often viewed as being part of an individual's progressive spiritual evolution toward realisation of their own divinity. At times, past life regression are employed in order to reveal a Higher Soul's previous incarnations, usually with an explicit healing purpose.
Demographics
Although most influential New Age figureheads are male, approximately two-thirds of its participants are female.
In the United States, the first people to embrace the New Age belonged to the baby boomer generation, those born between 1946 and 1964. The majority of New Agers are from the middle and upper-middle classes of Western society. The typical New Ager is someone who is well-educated, yet disenchanted with mainstream society, indicating that the movement caters to those who believe that modernity is in crisis.
Commerciality and community
New Age spirituality has led to a wide array of literature on the subject and an active niche market, with books, music, crafts, and services in alternative medicine available at New Age stores, fairs, and festivals.
New Age fairs (sometimes known as "Mind, Body, Spirit fairs" or "psychic fairs") are spaces in which a variety of goods and services are displayed by different vendors, including forms of alternative medicine and esoteric practices such as palmistry or tarot card reading. An example is the Mind Body Spirit Festival, held annually in the United Kingdom, at which one can encounter a wide range of beliefs and practices from crystal healing to Kirlian photography to psychic art, from angels to past-life therapy, from Theosophy to UFO religion, and from New Age music to the vegetarianism of Suma Chign Hai. Similar festivals are held across Europe and in Australia and the United States.
A number of New Age proponents have emphasised the use of spiritual techniques as a tool for attaining financial prosperity, thus moving the movement away from its counter-cultural origins. This "New Age capitalism" is largely small-scale and entrepreneurial, focused around small companies, rather than being dominated by large scale multinational corporations. The links between New Age and commercial products have resulted in the accusation that New Age itself is little more than a manifestation of consumerism.
Given that it encourages individuals to choose spiritual practices on the grounds of personal preference and thus encourages them to behave as a consumer, the New Age has been considered to be well suited to modern society.
Criticisms
Mainstream Christianity has typically rejected the ideas of the New Age; Christian critiques often emphasise that the New Age places the human individual before God. According to the Vatican, euphoric states attained through New Age practices should not be confused with prayer or viewed as signs of God's presence.
The New Age has been accused of cultural imperialism, misappropriating sacred ceremonies, and exploitation of the intellectual and cultural property of Indigenous peoples. Indigenous American spiritual leaders, such as Elders councils of the Lakota, Cheyenne, Navajo, Creek, Hopi, Chippewa, and Haudenosaunee have denounced New Age misappropriation of their sacred ceremonies and other intellectual property. Indigenous leaders have spoken out against individuals from within their own communities who may go out into the world to become a "white man's shaman," and any "who are prostituting our spiritual ways for their own selfish gain, with no regard for the spiritual well-being of the people as a whole."