Because of the idealist’s grocery list of reasons to avoid labeling, few of those who hold New Age beliefs identify with the term. Sutcliffe was right when he noted that all New Age efforts to pin down a "stronger collective identity" are met with an "inbuilt resistance at the heart of the phenomenon."

Essentially, the very beliefs that make me a New Ager all but require me to deny being a New Ager!  

That is why you can approach New Age-y person you know -- say, a woman who makes her living giving psychic readings and remembers her past life as a Roman slave and meditates daily in a circle of crystals – and ask her if she is New Age, and she will merely laugh with an amused, "No."

So what do idealists call themselves? 

Some will say they are "sort of Buddhist" or "a little bit Zen," even if they’ve never entered a Buddhist temple or meditated more than once or twice. Or they might be "into Yoga" or "reading about Taoism lately."  Or, they might have said they were "experimenting with Wicca" or "going through my Celtic phase" or "taking Kabbalah."  Or, they could be Unitarian, or Religious Scientists, or even “Christian with an open mind.” 

Most, however, will simply call themselves "Spiritual."

New Agers in disguise

On Sept. 5, 2005, Newsweek ran a cover story about "Spirituality in America." The magazine printed poll results to the question, "Which best describes you?"  Sixty-four percent of respondents identified themselves as one of the categories of "Religious."  Meanwhile, 24 percent identified themselves as "Spiritual but not religious."

Do these 24 percent of “spiritual” American necessarily hold to New Age-style idealism? Certainly not all do. But if we look at clues offered within the poll, it appears that a definite majority do.

When asked "What happens when we die," a total of 18 percent gave answers that are explicitly idealistic, either saying the soul lives in a non-dualistic "spiritual realm" (13 percent), or is "reincarnated" (5 percent).

Another indication is found in the answers offered to the question, "How traditional are your religious practices?" Nineteen percent said "not traditional" and another six percent said, "On the cutting edge," for a total of 25 percent.  

Other evidence that "Spiritual" has become the innocuous codename for New Age beliefs can be found on the shelves of any bookstore.  Peek inside most any book with "Spirituality" in its title -- say, for example, Sprituality for Dummies -- and you will find a perfect description of the ideas made popular by the New Age.

Interestingly, the Newsweek number of “spiritual but not religious” nearly matches the percentage of Americans who are “Cultural Creatives” according to sociologists Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson. Their 2002 book, based on survey research studies on more than 100,000 Americans, concluded that 26 percent of adults in the U.S. -- or 50 million people -- have made a “shift in their worldview, values and way of life.”

Ray and Anderson go on to describe this “new” worldview, which again, is the same old idealism that was declared new 20 years earlier when the New Age hit the scene. Yet Ray and Anderson stress that “No one wants to be called New Age anymore.”  (Of course, in the four years since the book was published, it would appear they haven’t embraced the term Cultural Creatives either, for the phrase has all but disappeared from the cultural radar.)

So here we are, with a huge slice of the population sharing a similar spiritual idealism. One might expect that such a large number of idealists would collectively have an enormous impact on our culture, our institutions, our politics, our future.  But even a cursory glance at society will tell you that while some of our ideas have trickled into the mainstream, real impact has been slight.

Obviously, our choice to avoid labels comes at a huge price.

Go to The High Cost of Generic Spirituality.