Spirituality – New Age (Part 2)

Definition

The New Age phenomenon has proved difficult to define, with much scholarly disagreement as to how this can be done. Religious studies scholar Paul Heelas characterised the New Age movement as “an eclectic hotch-potch of beliefs, practices, and ways of life” which can be identified as a singular phenomenon through their use of “the same (or very similar) lingua franca to do with the human (and planetary) condition and how it can be transformed”. Similarly, historian of religion Olav Hammer termed it “a common denominator for a variety of quite divergent contemporary popular practices and beliefs” which have emerged since the late 1970s and which are “largely united by historical links, a shared discourse and an air de famille”. Sociologist of religion Michael York described the New Age movement as “an umbrella term that includes a great variety of groups and identities” but which are united by their “expectation of a major and universal change being primarily founded on the individual and collective development of human potential”.

Describing the New Age as a “religious movement”, the religious studies scholar Wouter Hanegraaff adopted a different approach by asserting that “New Age” was “a label attached indiscriminately to whatever seems to fit it” and that as a result it “means very different things to different people”. He thus argued against the idea that the New Age movement could be considered “a unified ideology or Weltanschaaung”. Echoing the view that the phenomenon labeled “New Age” was not “even a homogenous entity at all”, the religious studies scholar Steven J. Sutcliffe nevertheless rejected the idea of a “New Age movement”, deeming it to be “a false etic category”. Many of those groups and individuals who could analytically be categorised as part of the New Age movement reject the term “New Age” when in reference to themselves. Thus, religious studies scholar James R. Lewis identified “New Age” as a problematic term, but asserted that “there exists no comparable term which covers all aspects of the movement” and that thus it remained a useful etic category for scholars to use.

The New Age movement is a form of Western esotericism. Hanegraaff considered the New Age to be a form of “popular culture criticism”, in that it represented a reaction against the dominant Western values of Judeo-Christian religion and rationalism, adding that “New Age religion formulates such criticism not at random, but falls back on” the ideas of earlier Western esoteric groups.

York described the New Age movement as a new religious movement (NRM). Conversely, Heelas rejected this categorisation; he believed that while elements of the New Age movement represented NRMs, this was not applicable to every New Age group. Hammer identified much of the New Age movement as corresponding to the concept of “folk religions” in that it seeks to deal with existential questions regarding subjects like death and disease in “an unsystematic fashion, often through a process of bricolage from already available narratives and rituals”. York also heuristically divides the New Age movement into three broad trends. The first, the “social camp”, represents groups which primarily seek to bring about social change, while the second, “occult camp”, instead focus on contact with spirit entities and channeling. York’s third group, the “spiritual camp”, represents a middle ground between these two camps, and which focuses largely on individual development.

Luc Paquin