Just what is it anyway with the contempt that occultists, magicians, pagans, and intellectuals hold for the New Age? I recently had it out in a semi-public tussle with my friend the Archdruid John Michael Greer because of his apparent mockery of and disdain for New Age-style apocalypticism. And just today I am reading a wonderful magick blog that also takes its obligatory swipes at the "New Agers."
As for me, I find this pretty much an alternative rubric, having been trained to read in traditional Ivy League settings. Now that I am free, adult, and tenured, I can read whatever I like. And I like a lot of the New Age writing.
It is true that I am being generous about the quality of much of the material that is out there, but I respect sincerity. It is also true that I probably accept what I read a little bit more than I should. But I do not consider myself gullible.
I have a problem with the category and the label, anyhow. New Age. What is that? Are the quantum physics guys and pseudo-scientists considered New Agers? Are the New Agers my fluffy spiritual friends, the telepathic autism moms? Are they the Ascension people and the channelers? Folks who go on Abraham-Hicks cruises? Online personalities with shows on Blog Talk Radio? Lightworkers? Drunvalo Melchizedek? (okay, I don't really know that last one, but I love the way that the name sounds.)
I am digging the fact that there are so many resources available now for the average person to read. I don't take reading this stuff for granted. When I was a kid I had to sneak into the back of the bookstore at the mall and secretly browse the books in the witchcraft section. How many of us recall how dangerously subversive and thrilling it was to discover alternative spirituality and to read occult materials for the first time?
I think that all the haters should cut the New Agers some slack. After all, this is an American spiritual movement, it has spread like wildfire in only fifty years, and yes, it has legitimate though eclectic roots in some of our most important philosophical and esoteric traditions.
Perhaps we can ditch the term at some point and use the more meaningful term Aquarian Age. On the other hand, the snobbiest among us are right to point that the poet William Blake was the first one to coin the phrase in his famous John Milton epic:
but when the New Age is at leisure to Pronounce, all will be set right;
So, perhaps it is best not to denigrate the New Age writers and thinkers. Right, wrong, or crazy, they may be smarter than we think.
I think the problem is that a great deal of what is being presented as "New Age" material is basically, not to put too fine a point on it, crap. Between the Law of Attraction, the channelings from various Cosmic Brotherhoods which take up many words but have very little in the way of meaningful content, the odious misreadings of quantum physics and health advice ranging from bad to outright dangerous, and the Orientalism and colonialism of many New Age practices, it's no wonder many people hold their noses when they hear "New Age."
ReplyDeleteTo be fair, I've also seen some interesting material on New Age practices -- Christopher Penczak's Ascension Magic is fantastic, for example, and I think channeling has helped many people accept spirit possession as a valid practice. And the New Age movement definitely has roots in Buddhism and Theosophy, two solid if oft-misunderstood movements. But there is just so, so much intellectually flabby garbage which gets the "New Age" label stamped on it.
I recall that theosophy and buddhism, at least here in the US, were labelled at one time as "harmonial religious movements" that no scholars took seriously for their meaning until recently. The same goes for any new religion, and I think that the constellation of ideas, books, stories, myths and pseudo science that makes up the New Age is just as rich as Protestant Christianity's theological and intellectual meanderings in the Second Great Awakening. And we see where that went, for better or for worse!
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