In the 1980s, most of us swept up by the swelling New Age movement were certain the social phenomenon would continue to grow.  It was, we believed, inevitable.  The laws of evolution dictated that the human race would keep developing in awareness until we reached critical mass and tipped the whole of society into a New Age of harmony. 

Just a few years later, we began hearing rumblings of doubt that the movement would last. But with The Celestine Prophecy and Conversations with God perched atop the bestseller lists, it was easy to ignore those rumblings.

Yet soon after the new millennium dawned, the movement’s most well-known publication, New Age Journal, changed its name to Body + Soul. Meanwhile, the popular reference Web site, About.com, dropped its New Age category altogether. It was practically official; the New Age was no more. 

No one protested its disappearance, at least not publicly. Certainly, no one seemed surprised to see it go.  Of course, we know the holistic-idealistic movement did not really go anywhere, it just shed what most people saw as an unhelpful and unrepresentative label.

But in the interests of learning from history, it would be helpful to ask, what happened to the optimistic and revolutionary New Age-ness of it all?

New Age under attack

Like any new set of ideas that emerges to threaten the status quo, as soon as New Age idealism came to the attention of the mainstream, it came under heavy fire from the conservative philosophies that dominate Western society -- namely, scientific materialism and religious dualism.

Many a science writer relished the role of "debunker," dismissing New Age beliefs in general and poking fun at New Age believers in particular.  According to the science-minded, New Agers lacked critical thinking skills and lived in a fantasy land of their own making.

Yet far more upsetting was the accusations leveled by Christian writers. An entire subgenre of books issued from Christian publishers which bizarrely declared the New Age a plot of Satan to take over the world. (See 5 Myths about the New Age.)

This reprehensible campaign -- a symptom of the dualistic tendency toward inquistions and witchhunts -- had the intended effect of making the nice people of the New Age afraid to offend their neighbors, and hesitant to identify with their own movement.

When the majority opinion is that your beliefs make you a crackpot or the devil's handmaiden or both, it becomes ever more difficult to openly explore, let alone celebrate, those beliefs.   

History Lesson #1 – If we don't do a better job of defining ourselves, our detractors will be happy to do it for us.   

An Image Problem

Attacks on the New Age rarely originated from genuine knowledge of the movement and its intellectual underpinnings. Rather, the movement’s critics usually responded to the superficial image of the movement created bya cynical media.

In a decade defined by Reagan-style religiosity and Wall Street-driven materialism, the mainstream media of the 1980s downplayed the New Age’s legitimate ideas and their benefits, and shone an out-of-context spotlight on the more kooky practices happening under the New Age umbrella. 

Reporters looking for a good story were understandably attracted to the entertainment value of the movement’s colorful fringe – psychics, trance channelers, alternative “healers.” But in going for flash over substance, they created an indelible image of the New Age as a gathering of hucksters and clueless eccentrics.  They then took the image they themselves created, and went on to heap ridicule upon it.

In his May 1996 Time magazine essay, Lance Morrow pronounced the New Age   “junk,” adding that it was based in “idealism gone clueless and narcissistic.” Meanwhile David Brooks, a pundit for PBS and the New York Times, called New Agers “vaporheads.” 

Considering the popular image of the movement they presented to us, who could blame them for their opinions? After all, what sensible person would want to walk around with a pyramid perched on her head?

History Lesson #2 – If a reporter asks you about the New Age, don’t send him to a psychic fair; he’ll think that’s all there is.

Challenges from Within

Beyond pressures from the outside, the movement fell prey to internal challenges as well.

First, because idealism stresses open-minded seeking and “finding your own way,” we New Agers struck out in countless different directions, trying out many disparate beliefs and practices. Observers who watched our farflung wandering across the spectrum could only scratch their heads, unable to formulate an answer to the question, “What is the New Age?” 

Of course, most New Agers had opinions on the matter.  But being good idealists, it’s considered improper to impose one’s point of view on our fellows, so we left the question largely unanswered.  And when critics stepped up to answer the question on their own terms, we scattered New Agers, busy working hard on developing detachment, declined put up a defense. 

Repeat History Lesson #1 - If we do not do a better job of defining ourselves, our detractors will be happy to do it for us.

The New Age becomes a “market”

One of the best things to happen to the movement was the discovery of an adventurous group of consumers known as the New Age “market.”  This led to the first real attempts at organizing information about the movement and pinpointing its audience and their various interests.

At the same time, one of the worst things to happen to the movement was the discovery of the New Age as a market. This could not help but lead to the manipulation of the movement for maximum financial gain.

Mainstream publishers began in typically mainstream fashion by chopping the subject up into ever smaller niches.  Although the biggest-selling New Age books were broad and sweeping looks at New Age thought -- books that clearly satisfied a broad and sweeping hunger among seekers -- publishers continued to chop and narrow until it was difficult to find anything on a New Age shelf except off-the-wall subjects like feng shui for the bathroom, or advice on how to talk to your dead Aunt Mildred.

This caused widespread category confusion; narrow, irrelevant niches made the entire New Age look narrow and irrelevant.  Publishers, in an attempt the escape the problem they had created, then abandoned the New Age category altogether, creating a brand new broad category – Body/Mind/Spirit – that meant everything and nothing.   

Thus, those truly curious about the larger New Age picture found little but crumbs to fuel their interest, and serious students looking for depth found little to study.  (The exception: small presses like Shambhala or Hampton Roads.)

History Lesson #3 – Fine chopping might be good for general reference, but the abstract and amorphous ideas that lead to transformation get lost between niches.

Not surprisingly, the most damage was done by those who peddled useless products and remedies to New Agers with minds more open -- and expectations more grand -- than the average consumer.

Whether it was a pyramid on the head, or the advice of a so-called trance channeler, we with open minds and wallets too often discovered that the main benefit of New Age products and therapies went to the seller in the form of cash. 

Although we ourselves often contributed to the problem with gullibility, many of us ended up feeling ripped off, and fled the movement with the feeling, “this is a bunch of crap.”

History Lesson #4 -  Transformation cannot be bought.

Spiritual materialism rears its head

The New Age was rife with “magical thinking,” and it didn’t stop at miracle cures to health ailments.  Because the movement shares the same idealistic foundation as New Thought systems like Religious Science, the New Age absorbed ideas completely at odds with its own Eastern-based teachings of acceptance and detachment.  The movement then skewed toward spiritual materialism and manifestation mania. 

Author after author assured us we could “create” our own reality just by changing the thoughts and beliefs that drifted through our heads.  We were promised soulmates, fulfilling jobs, limitless money.  But of course, we learned that no matter how strictly we police our own thoughts or how fervent our belief, riches don’t materialize for New Agers any more often than they do for anyone else.

Once again, many people ended up feeling disillusioned.  And once again, many fled the movement with the feeling of "this is a bunch of crap."

History Lesson #5 --  Spirituality is not about getting what we want, it’s about learning to want what we have.

The spiritual elite take us to task

While greed and gullibility sent devotees spilling out of the silly end of the New Age spectrum, the serious teachers of “authentic” spirituality were locking up the other end with their strict standards and non-stop scolding. The movement’s most wise teachers – led by Ken Wilber, Andrew Cohen, Mariana Caplan – wrote book after book, and essay after eassy, suggesting that most of us who believed we were engaged in the business of transformation were actually just pandering to our egos by playing at spirituality.

Such sentiments were understandable in the face of the frivolity that once characterized much of the movement. And we can no doubt use all the caution flags we can get to keep us on our toes with the ego’s tendency to puff itself up. 

But when Cohen tells us that “real” transformation takes years and years of hard work and sitting still, and when Wilber tells us that only a tiny percentage of one percent of the population (0.0000001 percent to be exact) are “actually involved in genuine or authentic spirituality,” these teachers are more or less telling us we might as well pack up and go home.

Of course, that’s not what they mean.  They mean to prepare us for the arduous work and practice involved.  And it’s not as if they aren’t right -- the majority of us really aren’t going to spend the time and effort necessary to demolish the ego and exist in a non-dual state. The problem is that they speak to us as if we don’t know the difference between enlightenment and our efforts to change our thinking -- or the difference between transformation and translation, as Wilber describes it.

In reality, most of us with a basic grasp of New Age thought are achingly aware of how frantically we dance at the end of the ego’s strings.  We feel the pain of a divided self perhaps more acutely than anyone, and are more impatient with ourselves than anyone for not being more “enlightened.” And we work very, very hard at living peacefully in the moment with the handicap of thick and clunky egos.

In other words, we know exactly how much we don’t know -- and what we need is not continual admonitions about how many miles away we are from enlightenment, but encouragement in doing our human best.

I believe the “tough love” approach of the spiritual elite -- however well- intentioned -- created a sense of futility that drove many a dedicated seeker away from the New Age.

Wilber, writing in 1997, seemed to find this an acceptable consequence. After saying he hoped his words would indeed be taken as “elitist,” he added that he expected authentic spirituality to flourish only in teacher-led “small pockets” that would “slowly, carefully, responsibly, humbly, begin to spread their influence.”

In the nine years since Wilber expressed this sentiment, I have not yet seen any signs of the growing influence of so-called authentic spirituality (but then again, I live in Arizona). What I have seen is the rapid disappearance of the once-thriving and optimistic New Age movement, its potential adherents scattered to the winds, hiding out, and wielding no influence whatsoever.

Meanwhile the real ego-driven powermongers have been voted a license to run rampant over the globe. 

History Lesson #6 – If we have to wait around for everyone to become “authentically” enlightened before we believe ourselves capable of transforming the world, we better prepare for extinction.

Go back to Why We Resist the New Age Label .