New age

From SkepticWiki

The labyrinth, originally a Christian symbol of the escape from the snares of Hell, is now considered a New Age symbol of the path of spiritual growth.

New Age is a loose term for various 20th century belief systems, societies, practices, and merchandising opportunities aimed at personal spiritual development. It may be seen as a reaction to traditional western religious and philosophical traditions.

1 Core Beliefs
2 Science
3 Healing
4 Anti-Occidentalism
5 Eschatology
6 Noted New Age Personalities
7 See also
8 New Age Websites
9 References and Further Reading

[edit] Core Beliefs

The New Age movement has not existed long enough for the development of a coherent doctrine or scriptural canon (both of which might be antithetical to New Age belief). This causes a difficulty in creating an exact definition of New Age. Any definitive statements will inevitably be overly general and inexact.

“New Age” belief may be regarded as an extreme form of Syncretism, the belief that all philosophies and religions share a common core truth under many layers of dogma and tradition. Certain “core truths” have emerged as a common basis for what is called New Age belief.

Trancendentalism: The immaterial exists, and underlies the physical world.
Spiritualism: Everyone has an immaterial counterpart to their physical form, which possesses the ability to contact, affect, or receive from the transcendental.
Cosmic Goal: The universe has a purpose, and everything contributes to that purpose. Happiness can be found in understanding and trusting in that purpose.
Synchronicity: All things are connected or linked. Everything affects every other thing. Nothing is a coincidence.
Holism: Phenomena are best interpreted in the context of the integrated whole.
Physical Relativism: To some degree, truth is subjective, and is determined by personal experience or choice.

[edit] Science

It may seem that the core New Age beliefs are in direct opposition to the assumptions of Materialism, Rationalism, and Science. True to the relativist stance, many New Age believers would claim that these philosophies are not bad, just still in the infant stage of discovery. A fundamental assumption of Science is that reality is objectively observable, and that physical laws may be inferred from those observations. Since the immaterial is by definition not objectively observable, the pursuit of science is seen by New Age as a very limited path to knowledge. New Age belief instead puts emphasis on subjective experience, intuition, and on techniques that rely on transcendental connection: meditation, dreams, astrology, etc.. The failure of these methods to produce any kind of reliable, objectively observable results is not a concern; the effectiveness is believed to be evident to subjective experience, and is simply outside the constraining limits of science. Through its own non-scientific discovery techniques, New Age has generally come to include belief in parapsychology, Auras, Alien Visitation and Atlantis.

[edit] Healing

Modern medicine is seen by New Age practioners as ignoring or denying the fundamental principles of Holism or connectedness. Thus, New Age believers are more likely to favor such therapies as homeopathy or acupuncture as being more holistically inclined. The belief in the connectedness of all things leads naturally to the use of therapies resembling Sympathetic Magic, such as homeopathy or Crystal healing.

[edit] Anti-Occidentalism

Since the the so-called “classical” traditions and values of Europe and America seem opposed to the New Age beliefs, a certain level of suspicion is present in New Age for anything affiliated with “Western” thought, such as traditional Christianity, economic capitalism, and technology. While it is in no way true that “Eastern” traditions are diametrically opposite to “Western”, the popular stereotype of non-western culture is perpetuated through ignorance, and legend. Thus, there tends to be an affinity among New Age practitioners for philosophies and religious practices associated with South and East Asian, Native American, African, and ancient Celtic cultures. New Age practice often includes elements of traditional Buddhism and Yoga.

[edit] Eschatology

The mythology of nearly all religions contains prophecy of a “coming age” or “end time”. Not surprisingly New Age also adopts this belief, which is almost explicit in the name “New Age”. The nature of this future event is as diverse as New Age belief itself. It may be vaguely or specifically described. It may be gradual or catastrophic. It is generally some type of maturation, rather than destructive and final. Metaphysical versions of the future include “expansion of consciousness”, “paradigm shift”, “ascension”, “awakening”, “quickening”, etc. Physical manifestations may include: Earth Changes, collision with the Photon Belt, “hyperspatial breakthrough”, extra-terrestrial visitation, change in DNA structure, etc.