The New Age movement, with roots in the 1970s, is a diverse Western spiritual subculture emphasizing "individual, holistic, and eclectic practices aimed at personal transformation and cosmic consciousness." It combines Eastern mysticism, occultism, a huge spectrum of pseudosciences, and very vague metaphysics, focusing on self-divinity, "creating your own reality," holistic healing, and the expectation of an impending, enlightened "Age of Aquarius."
One of the most remarkable
developments in pseudoscience and religion, and generally
considered an outgrowth of the 1960s "Counterculture,"
is the set of beliefs usually called New Age. This
social and religious movement
basically incorporates almost all of pseudoscience, apart
from ideas like Creationism that are based on fundamentalist
religious frameworks. The religious basis of the New Age is a
form of pantheism, the idea that everything in the universe is
"conscious and alive," and that human beings are essentially
godlike, and have godlike powers if properly trained. Most New
Agers appear to have merged their New Age beliefs
with whatever somewhat ill-defined religious concepts they
already profess, so that for example angels and "ascended spirit
masters and guides" can be communicated with and can provide
help and guidance on a daily basis. One of the hallmarks of the
New Age is belief in the healing powers of crystals.
Another hallmark is "trance
channeling," an outgrowth of 19th Century Spiritualism. In
the 1960s and 1970s many paperback collections of "trance
readings" by hillbilly psychic Edgar Cayce became
available, with titles such as EDGAR CAYCE ON REINCARNATION,
EDGAR CAYCE ON ATLANTIS, EDGAR CAYCE ON NATURE'S REMEDIES,
etc., etc., and these largely incoherent "teachings" became for
many New Agers a kind of Holy Scripture. New Agers
do not abandon whatever vague traditional beliefs they already
have. Instead the New Age framework is loaded on top of
the earlier beliefs, and even where there are obvious direct
contradictions between standard religious teachings and New Age
dogmas, these inconsistencies are totally ignored.
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Although most New Agers today have never heard of them, the synthesizers, collectors and initial popularizers of many, if not most, of the components of the New Age belief framework were Helena Blavatski, who co-founded the once influential religion of Theosophy, and onetime follower Alice Bailey, in the late 19th and early 20th Centuries. The term "New Age" appears, for the very first time, in Theological literature circa 1900. Also a number of flying saucer-based religious cults created mainly in the 1950s, such as those of George Adamski and many imitators, were based on Theosophical teachings and spread those ideas into pseudoscience in a general way as "teachings of the masters of wisdom who are sending out these flying saucers on a mission to earth."
 Blavatsky |
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 Cayce |
Because New Age beliefs cover such
a vast spectrum,
incorporating nearly every popular pseudoscience, it is very
difficult to determine who
in the US should be considered a bona fide New Ager. There is a
general feeling among sociologists that the New Age movement is
losing members, and a no-religion
group is steadily growing, but I suspect this is wishful
thinking. However sympathetically one views the New Age
movement, the distressing fact remains, that this is just one
more movement that is resolutely anti-reality and anti-science,
yet another way that ancient magical
thinking keeps making a comeback in an increasingly
technology-ruled world where primitive beliefs can only
damage lives. The New Age is resolutely
anti-science. Additional
food for thought.
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Although the New Age
movement involves many religious concepts, it is not
sociologically organized as a religion. There are no New Age
"churches." And New Agers who are conventionally religious
always adopt their New Age beliefs "on top of" their religious
beliefs, with a firm partition between, so that followers of
the New Age simply ignore any real conflicts between their
conventional religion and the New Age beliefs. As a result,
the only groups which firmly reject New Age beliefs are
religious fundamentalists, and some of the non-religious.
Basically, the public sees the New Age as a lifestyle choice!
However, the huge spectrum of medical quackery deeply embedded
in almost all New Age doctrines makes many New Age practices
acutely dangerous to the health of the practitioner and his or
her family (and even pets)!
In the 1960s, when the Counterculture was very trendy among college students, few students would take elective introductory physics classes, because physics was considered an evil tool of the weapons industry. An example of a 1960s textbook attempting to reach such students is shown above. The author attempts to combat the usual misconceptions about physics popular in the 1960s and at the same time present an introduction to 20th Century physics!
Science in the modern USA is under continual attack from many different fronts... yet science is all we have, it is the only way we have discovered to describe and understand the world we live in, and nevertheless...