Back in the 1970s and 1980s, the burgeoning New Age movement promised to carry us to a new age of harmony for all, and millions climbed aboard.  Even those idealists who didn’t necessarily identify with the term “New Age” still shared in the dream of a better society and the belief we could make it happen together

Unfortunately, the grandiose dream of the movement was undermined by flatland idealism typical of Stage Four, and the emergence of grandiose egos.  Without a map of the spiral of development to point the way to higher stages, we got stuck on the spiral, and found it impossible to escape the weight of fattened egos.  Our egos then decided we didn’t need a movement, and we quickly left it behind like any other embarrassing, over-the-top fashion leftover from the 1980s.

Now I will confess that in writing this argument, my point of view is subjective, my motivation is emotional and my conclusions may be unfair.  It could be that I am blaming my fellow idealists for self-centeredly abandoning the movement because I am still self-centeredly aggrieved that the movement abandoned me.  It could also be that I am projecting my own guilt over my own considerable case of narcissism onto my fellows.  And now, in my desperation to do something so that my children will have a future, I have become strident and overcritical. 

But whether or not I’ve accurately uncovered the reasons idealists abandoned the New Age, the fact remains, it was abandoned.  And whatever my motivation, the question of whether we left behind something worth preserving is a valid one.  Meanwhile, examining the costs of narcissism is an exercise even the most unemotional of observers have urged us to undertake.

Of course, we have no choice but to spend time in the individualistic Stage Four of our spiritual growth; however sticky it gets, it’s the only way to get to higher stages and we have to learn to navigate its obstacles.  And admittedly, with all the outside pressures bearing brutally down on the movement -- by religion and the media and the market -- the New Age vehicle was not in good shape, and was, in fact, listing badly. 

So it could be that our collective jump from world-saving mission to our own individual concerns was inevitable, unavoidable.  It could be that we needed to abandon the movement so it could be overhauled and built into something that better moves us, better helps us to grow. 

But just because there were good reasons to leave the movement behind for a time doesn’t mean that we are better off struggling along on our own indefinitely.  Unless, of course, you have managed to reach Stage Five growth and your ego is well in check and you are fully engaged in compassionate work that uplifts others. 

But for the rest of us, mired in Stage Four self-absorption, we need to ask ourselves:  Is continuing along our own self-styled paths truly helping us evolve?  Are we really developing the integral insights and capabilities that will improve our lives and allow us to create a better world?  

The sedated soul

Idealism has always urged spiritual seekers to “start with the self,“ and New Agers have adopted the phrase as a self-validating mantra.  But we need to examine this dictum more closely.  The key word here is not “self;” the key word is “start.“ The spiritual search is not meant to end with the self; rather, it is meant to help us transcend the self so that we may discover our true relationship with Spirit and with each other.  We are meant to discover the self in its context with the whole -- and thereby expand our circle of concern beyond the self.

Spirituality practiced in self-centered isolation offers us no context -- it offers no handholds to grab, no stages to master, and no reason to grow past our own needs.   “Without a larger raison d’etre than the desire for self-satisfaction, we will only find narcissism – an endless hall of mirrors – at the end of our spiritual search,” writes Elizabeth Debold in her eloquent essay on the “spiritual but not religious” trend. (What Is Enlightenment? Dec 2005). 

Here we are at narcissism again, the bane of the New Age, and all around booby-trap for the solitary spiritual seeker.  We set off on a path of radical freedom and end up in a closed- off and stagnant pool of radical self-absorption.  And in this self-absorption we linger, writes social observer Tom Huston, stuck in the flat and gray areas of life, “comfortably numb,” with inadvertently sedated souls.  

That is precisely where we Individualistic idealists have been for the past decade or two, swimming about on our own, separated from our fellows, yet floating safely in the rings of our puffed up egos -- trying to manifest our desires, or following the vague directions of “whatever feels right.”   Creatures of impulse rather than commitment, we have forgotten all about the vehicle that got us where we are.  Although once in awhile, we do remember we were heading for the other shore… 

Okay, so the “other shore” analogy is not perfect -- the New Age is not about getting to some distant place, or some future event.  It’s a process of learning to better inhabit the here and now, learning to better see reality, learning to better see ourselves, learning to better recognize ourselves in others.  

But we solitary seekers who abandoned the New Age -- whether as a vehicle or emergent process -- have yet to expand our circles of concern much beyond ourselves.   We are stuck, and worse, most of us have no idea we’re stuck.  I know I originally turned my nose up at such an insulting suggestion.  I had worked too hard, for too many years, to become an aware and moral human being.  I had sacrificed my ego in a hundred different ways through work and motherhood.  No one was going to tell me I was stuck.

And yet, when I took a good hard look at my habits, I had to admit they all revolved around me -- my wants, needs, hungers, desires.  After raising three kids spread far apart, and a grueling span of fifteen years with at least one child five or under, I finally got a little space to breathe and make some money, and my ego rose up with a demanding cry of “My turn!”  I had assumed my greater sense of peace and contentment was a sign that I was finally growing wise in my old age.  But really, I had just become good at rationalizing my subservience to the desires of my ego.

The older we are, the stronger our individualism, and the more likely we feel justified in the choice to abandon our collective ship.  The older we are, the more we feel we have earned the right to do as we please (which of course we have), and the more difficult to rouse ourselves from the comfortable cocoon of narcissism to accept the social consequences of our actions.  This is true not only in an abstract sense, but in the concrete sense of how the brain is neurally imprinted with habits of thought over time.  In older brains, the neural pathways of individualism are thick and strong and hard to rewire.

Younger idealists with neural pathways still forming are less likely to be hard stuck in their individualism, and more likely to notice that we are stranded, isolated, miles away from shore.  But young or old, all of us are surely becoming more aware that the future is in jeopardy.  All of us long to get to a better place; we just don’t know how to get there. 

Unfinished evolution

So just how do we get to a better place?  In my opinion, we need to get over ourselves, deflate our egos, climb back onto the New Age vehicle, and finish the process of our evolution so we can save the world.  I honestly believe it could be that easy to change the swing of the social pendulum back in the direction of change and progress, toward peace and harmony. 

Not that I believe the New Age can or should be all things to all people.  But I do believe as the popular expression of Stage Four idealism at the turn of the millenium, it provides a vital structure on the all-important spiral of development.  The New Age once served as the most frequently-used bridge between Stage Three and Stage Five, and since that bridge has crumbled, our spiritual evolution has bogged down and those in Stage Two have literally taken over U.S. society. 

I absolutely believe that if all of us spiritual idealists -- of whatever pagan or Buddhist or Christian or “spiritual but not religious” variety -- simply agreed to take on a collective umbrella identity, we would unblock the spiral of development for everyone and help shift the bell curve of the population toward higher spiritual growth.

What I don’t believe is that it’d be anything close to easy to convince spiritual idealists to take on a specific identity.  No matter how many might agree with me that we need to figure out how to join our efforts, few would agree that accepting a label is the answer, let alone the much-abused New Age label.  After all, if there’s anything a “I do my thing, you do your thing” idealist can’t stand, it’s labels.  

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