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Definition: The label "New Age" is a vague, catch-all term applied all manner of modern spiritual, paranormal and religious beliefs. Just about the only thing they all have in common is that they do not derive from biblical traditions, which of course leads those who belong to the orthodox or fundamentalist wings of those biblical traditions to treat anything New Age as satanic and evil.
The name itself is derived from the fact that many movements which can be categorized as New Age regard themselves as being on the forefront of a general societal trend which is moving towards a "new" age of spiritual development. In this new age, old religious dogmas will be abandoned and entirely new superstitions adopted.
A great many New Age ideas are derived from Eastern religious traditions, like Hinduism and Buddhism. These traditions did not make many inroads in the United States for a long time, but all of that changed in 1965 when the Asian Exclusion Act was repealed. This had kept the numbers of immigrants from Asia at low levels, but now teachers of Eastern beliefs came in large numbers for the purpose of converting Westerners. In 1972, Ira Friedlander wrote:
A Great Spiritual energy has been moved to this country and holy men of the East are following it, and, of course, they bring the Light within them to become our mirrors. They establish centers or ashrams and reconfirm the spiritual centers within ourselves. They plant the seed of inner peace within the divine grace, which remains and nourishes like a good rain that falls on fertile soil; long after the rain has gone, the seed in the soil continues to grow.
In his essay "A Personal Odyssey Through the New Age," Ted Schulz described these four themes which continually reoccur throughout New Age writings and teachings:
(1) "Materialistic [a.k.a Western] science" and rationalism in general are responsible for most of the evil in the world. (2) Objective truth is an overrated commodity, perhaps an illusion that doesn't really exist. (3) All knowledge originates from a spiritual plane (a.k.a the "etheric" or "astral" world) that is "higher" or more important than the material world. Some extend this concept to condemn the material world as a "bad" place, the preoccupation with which is the source of all of humanity's problems. ...(4) We are each "personally responsible" for the conditions of our lives. Some New Age systems ...carry this notion to an extreme, asserting that we have "chosen" our parents, physical ailments, and other life situations usually considered byeond our control.
Another important principle of New Age philosophies is that it simply does not matter if those philosophies or if any of the underlying principles are "true" or not. All that matters is if a person's behavior improves and if the person grows spiritually. This is a form of spiritual Machiavellianism - the ends justify the means every time. It is because of this that people who count themselves as part of the "New Age" are able to tolerate any belief or doctrine except skepticism. For them, to be skeptical is to be without hope - hope of personal improvement or hope of spiritual development. Even worse, their presence and their writings imperil the rest of the world's population by leading them away from New Age beliefs.
This last point is important - skeptics are threatening because the New Age does not simply posit a personal transformation, but rather a social transformation. The New Age is about a new type of society for the future. In this society, all of the current problems will have been resolved and all people will live in brotherhood and harmony. There will be no more religious, political, or class differentiations.
There is some question as to just how long the "New Age," at least as it is currently understood, will be able to survive. One problem is its lack of central organization - without institutional backing, it can be difficult to survive as society changes. Another problem is the fact that the New Age has borrowed heavily from science - not methodology or principles, but rather words and superficial understandings of a few ideas. Science, however, has progressed while the New Age has been stuck in the past. The further science develops, the more quickly the New Age interpretations will fall apart. What remains to be seen, however, is whether or not its followers recognize that.
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