New Age Spiritualities November 16, 2009
Posted by Anthony Bosco in Notes.trackback
The following is an extract from The Dictionary of Contemporary Religion in the Western World (Intervarsity, 2002) by Douglas Groothuis.
I include this bibliographical information not because I am time-rich, which I am not, but because I want you to reference sources in your essays and reports.
The term “New Age,” as in New Age spiritualities or the New Age movement, has a variety of meanings. Christians have sometimes spoken of the new age inaugurated through Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. In the past few decades, however, “New Age” has been used to describe a social movement (or network), as well as a family of spiritual approaches to life involving both doctrine and religious activities that are taken by most analysts to lie outside the bounds of orthodox Christianity. The popularity of the term “New Age” reached its height in the 1980s. Many now opt for “new spirituality” or merely “spirituality.” However, “New Age” is still used, and not merely pejoratively.
New Age ideas and practices came to the fore through the countercultural revolt in Western nations in the 1960s, but their roots go further back to the nineteenth century movements of Transcendentalism, the Mind Science churches, and the Theosophical Society. Those associated with the New Age often controversially claim to continue an ancient esoteric tradition frequently suppressed by traditional religiosity and secular philosophy.
As a social movement, the New Age has no one leader, organization, or official creed, although celebrity enthusiasts abound. In the 1980s, actress Shirley MacLaine chronicled her conversion to New Age thought in several best-selling autobiographies and multiple media appearances, which helped bring the New Age perspective into the limelight. Some New Age oriented writers, such as Marilyn Fergusan, refer to the New Age as a network of like-minded organizations and individuals who share a concern for human and planetary transformation through spiritual experiences focused on the potential of the untrammeled self. The New Age will dawn when people turn away from both atheism and the restrictive dogmas of traditional Western religions, and instead embrace ideas and practices that free the self to realize its divine possibilities. This is sometimes correlated with the astrological claim that we are moving into the Age of Aquarius. In this sense, New Age spirituality can be loosely described as millenarian and messianic, with different people expressing different eschatologies. Although the New Age as a movement is composed of many different groups, New Age partisans may congregate at psychic and metaphysical fairs, for special spiritual events (such as the much-hyped Harmonic Convergence of 1987), or at sacred natural sites such as Sedona, Arizona (thought to be a center of mystical energy vortexes), or Stonehenge in England.
COMMON THEMES
Although New Age spiritualities are eclectic, syncretistic, and somewhat flexible with respect to beliefs, some common themes consistently emerge. Paul Heelas rightly claims that “the most pervasive and significant aspect of the lingua franca of the New Age is the that person is, in essence, spiritual.” Although a Christian would agree with this, Heelas goes on to specify what the New Age view takes the spiritual self to be. “To experience the ‘Self’ itself is to experience ‘God,” the “Goddess’, the ‘Source’, ‘Christ Consciousness’, the ‘inner child’, the ‘way of the heart’ or most simply and, I think, most frequently, ‘inner spirituality’.” In other words, the self is the spiritual center of the universe. Ted Peters captures this notion in the title of his critique of the New Age: The Cosmic Self. This view of self challenges the claim of monotheism that a transcendent, personal, and moral Creator stands above and beyond the created self, which should submit the Creator’s authority.
Like Christianity, the New Age world view repudiates materialistic secularism, deeming it reductionistic and unfit to accommodate our spiritual natures and possibilities. Unlike Christianity, it deems monotheism as overly authoritarian because it shackles the self to the concepts of finitude and sin and fails to see Christ as uniquely God incarnate. The world view of recent influential New Age thinkers (although they may not like the designation), such as best-selling author and medical doctor Deepak Chopra and mystic-scholar Ken Wilber, is generally pantheistic and monistic. This is representative of much, but not all, of New Age spirituality. In pantheistic monism, the Deep Self or True Self or Higher Self is one with the divine essence, however infrequently experienced. Chopra, much influenced by the nondualistic Hinduism of Transcendental Meditation, holds that this awareness of divine oneness is the source of spiritual and physical health. Wilber, influenced by Zen Buddhism, works on a more theoretical level, claiming that he has synthesized both Eastern and Western traditions across a broad range of disciplines. The emphasis on monism leads many New Age teachers to erase any ultimate ontological separation between God and creation or between good and evil. New Age teachers also affirm belief in reincarnation and an openness to paranormal experiences such as past-life regression, ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, spirit contact (or channeling), UFO encounters, and so on.
However, New Age spiritualities are not uniformly pantheistic and monistic, and even these perspectives come in different varieties. Some New Age adherents may adopt panentheism, a world view that affirms that while God is in everything and everything is in God, God in some sense transcends the cosmos. This is the view of New Age celebrity Matthew Fox, a former Catholic priest who became an Episcopalian to escape the censure of the church. Furthermore, while pantheism classically affirms an impersonal and amoral deity, many New Agers influenced by the monotheism of Judaism and Christianity inconsistently attribute personal qualities (such as love and purpose) to the impersonal/amoral divine force, principle, or consciousness. This tendency is found, for example, in the writings of Marianne Williamson, a popular New Age writer and speaker in the US. Others involved in New Age spirituality may be almost polytheistic in their insistence that we “create our own reality,” yet invoke the notion of universal deity and cosmic oneness in other contexts. Some traces of dualism can be found in New Age thought as well, especially those schools of thought influenced by Gnosticism, which rejects matter as illusory, evil, or less real than spirit.
The experience of New Age spirituality is often deemed more important than mere beliefs. This experientialism is found in the use of such consciousness-expanding therapies, as yoga, visualization, chanting, meditation, and the group experiences offered through seminars such as Werner Erhard’s est (later called the Forum). These “psychotechnologies” (Marilyn Ferguson) claim to empower people to cut through their sense of limitation and finitude in order to reach the “God within.”
Heelas has noted that New Age practitioners of many stripes employ religious traditions in a “detraditionalized” way. That is, they select elements from various Eastern mystical and Western occult and pagan traditions that suit their individual, interior needs. The ultimate authority on spiritual matters is the self, not some external source, whether church, society, or holy writ. Christopher Partridge refers to this orientation as “epistemological individualism,” which is often (paradoxically, some might say) wedded to a metaphysical monism.
PREMODERN, MODERN, OR POSTMODERN?
In its cobbled-together eclecticism, New Age spirituality is akin to postmodernism–an approach that rejects fixed boundaries, foundations, and established definitions in favor of alternative, fungible, and rather ad hoc social and personal arrangements. However, the religious traditions to which the New Age typically appeal are premodern, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, and ancient paganism. To further complicate matters, New Age adherents may be considered modernists in at least three senses: (1) Despite monistic claims, they retain a focus on the individual and autonomous self’s sense of meaning and purpose, thus opposing the postmodernist notion of the decentered self wherein the self dissolves into contingent social structures. (2) New Age spiritualities maintain a commitment to the idea of cosmic progress by claiming that we are moving into a superior New Age, which is often understood as the result of “spiritual evolution.” The idea of social progress is anathema to postmodernist sensibilities, since it smacks of a positive modernist metanarrative or totalizing ideology. (3) Some New Age theorists, such as physicist Fritjof Capra in The Tao of Physics and subsequent writings, claim that the discoveries of modern physics substantiate the metaphysical claims made by ancient eastern mystics. Whether successfully or not, this strategy seeks rational support for mystical views from modern scientific knowledge, which it takes to be reliable and objective. Therefore, it seeks legitimization from a source of knowledge taken to be authoritative by modernist thinking.
CRITICISMS
Many of the first critiques of New Age spirituality came from conservative Protestant writers who saw the perspective as unbiblical and even demonic in some of its aspects. These polemical approaches ranged from the sensational and apocalyptic accounts that tied the movement into end-times prophecy, to the more apologetic and theological treatments that assessed the New Age world view logically and biblically. Similar treatments by conservative Roman Catholics followed, sans apocalypticism. More liberal writers of both traditions often hailed the New Age as reinvigorating spirituality, albeit in heterodox ways. Skeptical, modernist critics condemned the New Age as superstitious and retrograde, since they took it as dismissing critical rationality and the advances of secular, modernist society. Since the early 1990s, a growing number of nonreligious, scholarly books and journal articles have appeared which describe the phenomenon historically, sociologically, and psychologically.
Bibliography
1. Robert Basil, ed., Not Necessarily the New Age: Critical Essays. New York: Prometheus Press, 1988.
2. Marilyn Ferguson, The Aquarian Conspiracy. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, 1980.
3. Douglas Groothuis, Unmasking the New Age: Is There a New Religious Movement Trying to Transform Society? Downers Grove, Illinois: InterVarsity Press, 1986.
4. Paul Heelas, The New Age Movement. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.
5. Christopher H. Partridge, “Truth, Authority and Epistemological Individualism in New Age Thought,” Journal of Contemporary Religion, Vol. 14, No. 1, 1999:77-95.
6. Ted Peters, The Cosmic Self: A Penetrating Look at Today’s New Age Movements. New York: HarperCollins, 1991.
7. Ken Wilber, A Brief History of Everything. Boulder, Colorado: Shambhala Press, 1996.
I find it humorous to believe that people associated with new age spiritualities and the continuation of ancient esoteric tradition feel that they have been suppressed under the ”traditional religiosity and secular philosophy”. To add to the “seriousness” of new age spiritualities, it’s a pity they are unable to express themselves through one leader or official creed which is all good and well, but to feel it is necessary to have some celebrity advocate their spirituality to make a cheap buck is just too much. Tom Cruise being a prime example. It is also good that this extract managed to mention the “The Age of Aquarius”- wouldn’t have been the same without it. It just doesn’t give it the seriousness it so truly deserves. Whenever this concept is thrown up, I can only think of the 40 year old virgin, when at the end of the movie, they just all start singing to this song in one weird spiritual moment. Good movie by the way.
The overall message illustrated is that new age spirituality expresses individualism and self experience and allows an individual to reach certain levels, without the aid of God, or the form of structure or beliefs. To me, it just doesn’t appeal, as each so called “spirituality” comes off as some corporate business with a really good marketing team, making ignorant people believe they need this form of salvation in order to reach some individual level of enlightenment. I may just stick to the good old Catholic Church, no matter how evil they make it out to be.
M.NAJEM
New age spirituality is a notion that occurs to almost every person. i believe that people search for their own deeper meanings to life and somewhat select the aspects that will help them to find that inner meaning. this new social, religious phenomenon categorizes the social change of the Australian population. people are no longer happy in conforming to the major religious. they do not provide that sense of fulfillment nor with the idea of INDIVIDUALITY. whether it be Feng Shai or Reading Tarot cards everyone searches for the questions that tangible items cannot answer and therefore has turned to new age spiritualists
:)
It appears to me as though those who follow new age spiritualities are not true beleivers despite the large amounts of effort that they pour into maintaining a facade of devout belief. The followers of many of these new age religions, particuarly massive ‘corporate’ religions such as Hillsong, are merely choosing what they view as the easy path, a way of conforming to a alrger audience – they get to follow a watered down brand of Christianity, as well as achieving a modicum more of self-worth and individuality. The very fact that these religions are championed by celebrities e.g. Scientology and Tom Cruise, proves that they cannot rely on faith alone to draw followers, rather they recquire the ‘star power’ and popularrity of celebrities to draw people to their cause. What I find even more sad is the fact that despite many New Age religions are clearly little more than thinly disguised money making schemes (the founder of Scientology [i forget his name] even publicly admitted that he did not believe in his ‘religion; himself) people continue to follow the teachings of these institutions in order to appear popular or successful.
Chris
The New Age Movement is in a class of its own. Unlike most formal religions (Christianity), it has no holy text, central organization, membership, formal clergy, geographic center, dogma, creed, etc. Many people use this to find deeper meaning to certian issues and feel the need to share somewhat similar beliefs and practices. Many people feel the need to find answers and want something different and fun, in comparison to the older religions (Judaism). Many people undertake this to feel a sense of Individualism to others. People who are part of new age religions believe this can be done by a number of tanglible goods. For example, Tarot Cards and Cyrstal Crystal etc
Here are some statisitics on new age religions
Recent surveys of US adults indicate that many Americans hold at least some new age beliefs:
8% believe in astrology as a method of foretelling the future
7% believe that crystals are a source of healing or energizing power
9% believe that Tarot Cards are a reliable base for life decisions
about 1 in 4 believe in a non-traditional concept of the nature of God which are often associated with New Age thinking:
11% believe that God is “a state of higher consciousness that a person may reach”
8% define God as “the total realization of personal, human potential”
3% believe that each person is God
That’s excellent work, Chris. Thank-you very much for those stats. It is always more impressive to be able to support an argument or a discussion paragraph with specific facts, statistics or quotes. Well done there.
Well firstly let me just say that I am not posting this to insult people’s beliefs but to me New Age Spirituality is just like a new TV. It attracts people at first by being new and whizz bang, so it immediately grabs the attention of a certain number of people who wish to upgrade to the latest, this in a way is the same with new age religions. As the religions are only ‘recent’ it has attracted many new followers who want to be a part of the ‘latest and greatest’ fad. Ultimately after a few decades, something else will arise and attract more people to convert as with a TV many people will buy a new one over time.
Although that is only my view on New Age Religions, the followers will tell you that they are on their own journey to find spiritual guidance and are able to do this through their different methods. As Sir has said on many occasions, everyone is the same on the inside but feels a need to express their self in different ways, and I am saying, who is to judge on their beliefs. But all in all, I believe that everyone should have the right to express their self in their own way, and although many will criticise others, in the end are their beliefs any less ‘stupid’?
Your new TV analogy is brilliant, Dominic. Particularly because it ties in very nicely with explaining the high-rate of denominational switching amongst the various Protestant Christianities. I am profoundly proud.
The section about ‘common themes’ makes the arguement that new age spirituality invloves an unconcious belief in God, which is evident through thier belief in ‘self’. This ties back to the idea that all religions are based on the same template and that some religions have branched off, in an attempt to be individual. All the religions that have branched off are similar in the sense that, they all felt the need to leave their previous faith and beliefs, to go along a different path which ends at the same destination.
New Age religions incorperate a transcendent dimension. Through practicing a religion, they inaugarate a imminent dimension, and with a imminent dimension comes a transcendent dimension. To perform imminent practices, they must have a transcedent dimension/ superior power for whom their practices are perfromed.
I personally don’t think that new age religions are bad just because they go against what our church believes in, at the end of the day yes I believe in Christianity and do not share views and beliefs with those that are part of these new age religions but I don’t think they are necessarily a bad idea or organisation just because its not what we believe in. Like, the article states that they don’t have any holy texts, central organisations, memberships, formal clergy, geographic center, dogma or creed. But at the end of the day it’s a completely new religion and hence different to every one before it (i.e. All formal religions)
I think comparing it to older religions and more formal ones such as Judaism and Christianity like we have been, is not right, because yes it may be a religion just the same but its is completely different in its purpose and more noticeably the way it goes about getting their message across. In contrast to the more formal religions it searches for personal fulfillment and individual worth, clearly something completely different from formal religions who believe in communal fulfillment. Therefore they are simply a new religion with new and subsequently different views and beliefs and therefore should not be judged and critiqued for being a tangent to the norm (which we created)
New age relgions is in a class by itself. People believe that some new age religions have super natural powers and people believe that these new age religions can cure sickness or even predict the future. The people who believe in any new age religion will tell you that they are on a path to find their spiritual guidence. People choose to follow a new age religion because they want to feel some individualism to others.
A new age religion does not have a holy text, central organisation, membership, formal clergy, geographic center, creed and so on. some examples are Crystals, Tarot cards etc.
I believe that people can believe in whatever they want to and whatever that is, is fine for me as long as they are happy.
Before I start, just a few things..
1) I can’t see everyone’s comments for some reason, and I was soo looking forward to reading Maddie and Liam’s !
2) Sorry that my post is late !
3) Apologies in advance for the stream of consciousness that is about to follow !
right..
This article was reminiscent of the “good ‘ole days” in extension english. Post Modernism, Modernism, epistemology.. wow, I’m glad I actually learnt something otherwise I could have gotten extremely lost.
I think I should point out for the benefit of no-one but myself that not everyone who practises elements of “New Age Faiths” believes in them as separate to or extensions upon a major religious tradition. Some practises have PROVEN health benefits such as Yoga and Pilates (thank you very much!).
Also, I’m quite a fan of Ecumenicalism, an idea that I’d decided upon before learning that someone with more power had decided it first (and that’s not the first time that’s happened..Damn Michel Montaigne!). New Age Spiritualities may, to some, seem ‘wild and wacky’ but wouldn’t others have thought the same when some weirdos went running around claiming some Jew had just risen from the dead? Didn’t people believe in that too? Whatever people believe, most choose it because it makes them happy and provides them with the answers they seek. Whilst some people, like myself, may never be satisfied by just one person or groups answers, it may be enough for others. Is it really appropriate to belittle one’s beliefs just because they’re a little different? The End.
P.S. Sorry about the numerous grammatical errors and nonsensical statements that I’m sure riddle this comment. [ And that sentence, too, was probably a giant mistake..I'm going to blame this on the time (: ]
Sarah, find us under the “Hello World!” section below this… We posted in the wrong spot!
New Age movement has no holy text, central organisation or scared historian unlike other religions. New Age is a network of believer who share beliefs and practices.
examples of New age beliefs:
-God is “a state of higher consciousness that a person may reach”
-Each person IS god
-Crystals are a source of healing and energising power
examples of New age practices:
-Gentle music, melodic, inspirational music from human voice and flute. these are used as an aid in healing.
-Divination= using techniques to foretell the future.(EG:2012)
-holistic health=healing techniques to promote balance in the individual
These individuals ‘shop’ (hyper consumerism) for the beliefs and practices that they believe will answer the unanswered questions and which makes them feel comfortable and some base their beliefs on science. Many of these individuals ‘shop’ because they want to feel and be UNIQUE from others even though they are EXACTLY the same as everyone else.
Today the ultra modern, up to date, ipod wielding, generation Y’er who is addicted to facebook and has no time for a prehistoric religion wants something different. They want to feel good about them selves and they want instant forgivness not forgivness that you have to say five hail mary’s and 3 our fathers for. These New Age religions are easily acessable and for only three easy payments of $59.95 you can resist.
Patrick, that was a truly brilliant extended metaphor/analogy. I am regretful to be losing you as a student, but I am certain that you are going to be putting both your wit and nuanced intellect to good effect in English and your Humanities subjects, as well as life beyond school; and that more than compensates for the loss.
an interesting read.
I feel that new age religions are abit of a joke. The tendency for people to find there own individuality should not come from some kind of new age religion, but from within themselves. I feel that people are somewhat insecure when joining these religions not knowing that these religions are extremely reliant on “lost” people like them. Hyperconsumerism is the key here for most people, as the corporate salespeople make there religion out to be all fancy when in all fairness its just a tad different and appeals to you more than your old faith. I’d rather just stick to the Catholic Church.
from what I’ve learnt, to me, new age religions are just another ‘new and shiny’ religion
Sure, there’s many faults and cracks in their beliefs, but to an extent there is in ALL religions. However, New age religions have not had the advantage of thousands of years to develop an argument to correct these ‘cracks’.
They are critisized as through mass consumerism they believe they achieve ‘individuality’, but in the same way in Christianity people are told they are ‘all unique’ (or mabye thats just my primary school education).
It seems like people all attempting to achieve the same thing, just in different ways, some which require people to devote money, time, etc. Religion essentially is just to ‘pass the time’ and fill voids in peoples lives, and new age religions are just a ‘new and shiny’ way of achieving this.
The criticism that new age religions are ‘a money making scheme’ and not a religion…well…think back to before martin luther? Didnt Christianity do the same thing?
Sir, you have certainly out done yourself once again, i find all of this information quite helpful as it also helps establish further background information on New Age Spiritualities and the fundamental aspects within.
The information contained is also extremely helpful as it discusses the contexts behind New Age spiritualities, the commonalities/ common themes it shares alongside christianity, its pre-modern, modern and post-modern ideologies which contribute to the notion of New Age spiritualities, these of which include; focus on the individual and autonomous self’s sense, the process of “spiritual evolution” and finally that they seek rational support for mystical views from modern scientific knowledge. The final aspect which truly helps us establish a greater understanding is through the criticisms of New Age spiritualities, this of which is underlying the various ‘loop holes’ within.
Sir, yet again truley helpful information, and although you are not and i quote ‘time-rich’ im sure you included the bibliography as you are extremly efficient with your time managment, so yes thank you once again Mr Bosco.
New Age spirituality… where do I start? I have a fair bit to say on thi stopic based on my own personal thoughts towards this, but I’ll spare you all from that (i tried it earlier anyway only to find out i didnt put my email in the box below and it didnt post, and all that i wrote got deleted
). From what I understand, New Age spirituality is really the human search for meaning and understanding. Disatisfaction with older religious traditions which rely on faith rather than a golden platter with the answers on it leads people towards thse New Age spiritualities, which give people what they want to hear (answers), rather than giving them questions. The whole concept of New Age spirituality to me is just a lack of faith on the behalf of believers of older religious traditions, which is where many of the New Age followers seem to be coming from. Most New Age beliefs make me laugh, especially the ones like witchcraft, UFO sightings, telekenisis and telepathy. I can’t get my head around how people actually believe in the above beliefs, which is why it makes it so funny to me ( I’ll probably end up being captured by some Men in Black or turned into a Newt before i realise my true mistake in doubitng them). Overall, most New Age beliefs seem like quite good ideas and could be good for the world, but those others… Either way, I’m not a huge fan of New Age spirituality and think people should just stick with the older religious traditions.