" New Age" is not a term I'm fond of, used as it so often is to cover a grab-bag of wishy-washy and commercially popularised notions on health, psychology, spirituality and philosophy - not to mention expressions of sappy music, kitchy art and really badly written books.
So many of the well-meaning people involved in the "New Age" movement seem to be credulous and muddled in what they believe, with strong tendencies toward inflation, narcissisism and infantility. They often remain essentially ego-driven, although alarmingly unconscious of it and would be horrified at the thought. The shadow continually erupts in their relationships and enterprises, despite the fact that they are doing something "healing" or "spiritual" and they are forever surprised by it.
And this is just the well-meaning! Spare a thought for the real loonies and wolves who move among these lambs in this milieu, fleecing as they go. The exploiters, commercial and psychological; the false gurus and prophets, the mad and the bad. What rich and wonderful pastures are opened in the name of healing and Spirit!
Like an infant the "New Age" consumes everything; religious products go into it's maw and are left undigested as the next new and shiny product catches the eye. One day it's the North American Indians, then it's vibrational medicine. After that comes Tibetan Buddhism, Taoism or some channelled entity, then back to the Aboriginal Dreamtime. And so on.
Having said all this you might think I don't like the "New Age". Actually, you'd only be half right. If the infantility, grandiosity and silliness of it irks my rational and Apollonian side, the rest of me finds it encouraging that the whacky ideas of the 60's have calmed down a bit and moved mainstream, if not middle-of-the-road, to the extent that you hear them mouthed as daily truisms in any suburban mall or small town high street.
The Churches stand Empty
In Europe and Australia today barely 7% of the population remain church-going Christians and yet there has been an explosion of 'spirituality' of one sort or another. People just don't buy the doctrinal certitudes foisted on them in the past and that no longer make sense. Nor does the Latterday Church of Good Works do it for them. People want to go 'within' and access a personal sense of spirit and self-discovery of their own. In a post-rational world they want to re-connect with nature, the body, instinct, ecstasy, mysticism and sexuality. In brief, the Feminine. All the things that the Judaeo-Christian tradition has been uncomfortable with over the centuries and sought to suppress.
The mistake they have made is to refuse to accommodate this popular search for Self. It is not even that they the churches themselves do not contemplate such things deeply. They do. You have only to read the great mystics and thinkers in these traditions from Eckhard to de Chardin, or contemplate the Kabbalah, to see the depth of the personal search for God that is universal in spirit and absolutely includes the feminine aspect of God. It is not just that historically churches are man-made political organisations that ignore the feminine, it is also that churches don't trust ordinary people to do it right. They think, with good reason, that many people will go astray on such a path and fall into the Pit. For when you identify with the Gods and the archetypes you deal with sacred forces that can very easily sweep you away. Everything they see of the "New Age" confirms their fears in this respect.
So the various churches are not just being protective of their patch but are genuinely concerned, for they know that the Path is a rocky and narrow. The sad thing is that because they have not dared to trust the times and the people, the churches and the cathedrals have become empty memorials to a bygone age. They have become irrelevant.
So what is this "New Age"?
And what is new about it? What we are seeing is the re-introduction of the feminine, the Yin principle, into the collective psyche. Call it the Return of the Goddess if you will. Over the next millennia we shall see the feminine and the masculine principles dance and play but essentially balancing each other to the exclusion of neither. We shall see authority progressively vested within the individual and not imposed externally in a way that works for the health of the planet.
We are talking of a new consciousness and that takes time. When you consider how long it has taken us to ascend from the Ooze to the Reptilian, through the Primal to the Magical & Mythical, followed by 30,000 years of the Matriarchal giving way to 8,000 years of the Patriarchal - what's a few thousand years here or there? We all of us participate in the Divine when we align ourselves with this process, contemplating the Mystery and the Ascent of Consciousness on which we are embarked.
What the "New Age" is not:
Well, it certainly isn't a particular date in the Mayan, the Julian or any other calendar known to man. A time when all is suddenly going to be hunky dory, where all will be sweetness and light. Nor a date when God's elect, eco or otherwise, will ascend to heaven and the planet be purged of wickedness and restored to a pristine state. It just ain't going to happen like that. It doesn't seem to matter how many loony prophesies exceed their due date but there will be people to believe them. What needs to be understood is that these concepts, of heaven and hell, Judgement Day etc., are eternal metaphors for unity and wholeness to be worked with psychospiritually. They are not there to be accepted or rejected as fact. That don't work no more.
Nor is it about regression.
The last thing any of us would want is a return to the Matriarchy that was. This suited a world up to ten millennia ago, when there were a lot fewer of us and we lived hunter-gatherer lives in related clans and tribes. Though attuned and respectful, if not fearful, of Nature - it certainly wasn't always the blissful idyll depicted by some of our feminist writers. Nature and the Mother, red in fang and claw had their day too. And who was it who was into human sacrifice? If you don't think that could happen again just cast your mind back to the 19th century romanticism leading to the Blood and Folk mysteries of the 20th century and Hitler's Germany. That's the toxic feminine and a collective thwarted anima at play in a declining Patriarchy. Imagine what could happen if the Big Mama turns toxic when she's running the show?
It isn't resurrected or pop versions of wicca, druidism, Giaia worship, paganism or herbalism. The Mother and Shamanism aren't it either. These all certainly honour the feminine but mostly look back to something long ago. They may in many cases offer genuine ritual and means of going within that are both satisfying and valuable to individuals. But in and of themselves their day has gone. It is not where the world is headed. Parts of what they offer we still need but they are not the answer.
It's not a fancy dress party
Somehow I can't escape the feeling a lot of the attraction is more about dressing up than anything else. What fun to cut a dash at Stonehenge and romp around the forest in Druid's robes or whatever gear modern witches and warlocks wear to their get-togethers nowadays.
Which reminds me of my friend Claude Klodzinski, who was Polish from Chicago, a.k.a. Big Hawk Standing Tree or somesuch. Claude told me in all seriousness that he really was a Red Indian, that their blood ran in his veins. As a kid many years ago, he said, he'd had a bad accident that required a blood transfusion. Guess what? He researched the hospital files and determined, to his satisfaction at any rate, that the donor was a full-blooded member of the Lakota nation. That not only had his life been saved by a Lakota but he'd been one all along. Yey! the Real Thing!
The need to concretise the experience may be fun, but it misses the point. Without the ability to go within and come up with the underlying allegory or myth for our own times it's really only a good time prancing round the campfire. True shamans, and there are not many of them left, recognise this.
Aboriginal Elders in Australia, men and women of high degree, holders of an ancient esoteric knowledge who have dwelled on the same untouched landscape of their ancestors for 60,000 years, don't only seek to pass on the old ways to others in the tribe. They speak to us all, recognising the global shift that has occured seeking to remind us of the ancient wisdom we need to carry into the approaching age. That is the message the remaining Native peoples have for us. It is nothing more or less than the remembrance of sacred respect for our Mother the Earth, unconcretised by attachment to a particular bit of it.
Nor is it Spiritual Big Mac
Perhaps the most unattractive aspect of the 'New Age' is it's commercialisation and spiritual materialism. By this I don't just mean the businessmen who will package and sell anything to anybody if they think there's a market for it. The "New Age" movement is hardly unique in that respect. No, I mean people who deceive themselves and others by making believe they have talents they do not. The armies of bodyworkers or energetic healers of one sort or another with little or no ability, the legions of Reiki "Masters", Avatars, crystal healers, channelers, urban shamans, movement teachers, sundry seers, astrologers & fortune tellers, personal growth leaders, psychological counsellors and so on.
Now before I get into trouble here, let me say I totally accept that there are talented practitioners of all of the above who genuinely render a service to people. It's just that people involved in any of the above need a lot of self-awareness to be sure they're not kidding themselves as well as the rest of us.
The "New Age" movement is a significant spiritual phenomenon and is likely to be around for a while. The "New Age" will eventually turn into a new age. Like a child it is a manifestation of what is to come. At the moment it turns the spiritual realm into a commodity, packaging ancient wisdoms, indigenous cosmologies and spiritual psychologies to satisfy our spiritual longing. Nevertheless it is an anticipation of the post-secular post-rational world on it's way and a symbol of our cultural and spiritual future.
As such I guess I'm going to have to get used to it. But I wish it'd just grow up!
" A full-blooded return to the Matriarchy is probably the last thing we'd all want. It wasn't always the blissful hunter-gatherer idyll depicted by some of our feminist writers. Nature & The Mother, red in fang & claw had it's day too....."
