The term “New Age” is often said to have originated with Alice Bailey, the most prominent promoter of Theosophy after Helena Blavatsky.  Bailey published a book entitled Discipleship in the New Age in 1944, the same year the American artist and mystic Walter Russell spoke in an essay about “this New Age philosophy of the spiritual re-awakening of man.”

But it wasn’t until the mid-1970s that the term became the emblem of a movement fueled by a resurgence of spiritual idealism.  And it wasn’t until the 1980s, at the same time that I myself first adopted the term and the ideas that it represented, that the emblem became widely-recognized. 

No doubt my view of the New Age label is probably unique to my own particular age (45 in 2008).  I was a teenager when the movement was most popular, and because I embraced the emblem so enthusiastically at such a young age, it became part of my spiritual identity.

I realize that just because the term holds special meaning for me, doesn't mean everyone else feels the same.  Older idealists are likely to have experimented with different belief systems before the New Age became popular.  If the term appealed to them at all, they probably tried it on for a time, then discarded it with relative ease. Younger idealists didn’t encounter the term "New Age" until it was regarded as passé, and so likely never identified with it at all.

Yet even those who never identified with it still know the term, and have a general idea of what it means. Certainly no other term introduced in the past 25 years to describe spiritual idealism is nearly as recognizable -- or memorable.  

The “stickiness” factor

Malcolm Gladwell’s 2002 book on trends and social epidemics, The Tipping Point, became such a huge bestseller that his ideas have become part of our common knowledge.  One of the terms he coined in that book was the “Stickiness Factor,” which describes an idea or phrase that not only “sticks” in people’s mind, but is easy to pass along.

Visionary writers, along with progressive organizers, want very much to find a term that will “stick” with their idealistic audience.  They try hard to find the just right words that unify a group and motivate it to action.  But, being visionaries, they rarely employ terms already used by someone else.  After all, a visionary is by definition a trailblazer, an innovator.  So most New Age writers tend to reinvent the wheel, and come up with something new and different. 

Yet all substitutes to the term New Age have failed to stick.  Remember the Global Renaissance Alliance introduced in 1999 with much fanfare?  It’s long gone. And have you heard talk of Cultural Creatives lately?  The Holistic Movement has fans, but is more particular to alternative health and food products. 

Body/Mind/Sprit is an unwieldy publishing category.  Radical Spirit, New Consciousness, Translucent Revolution, Self-Actualization– all these terms have made brief appearances before getting lost in the shuffle.

In June 2006, Newsweek magazine and Beliefnet.com began calling New Agers Lohasians, derived from the marketing acronym LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability).  The Beliefnet message board filled up with posts from people who thought the term referred to a Lindsay Lohan celebrity cult.  I haven’t heard the term again since.

No term really sticks to the movement formerly known as the New Age.  But just because most other names fail to stick doesn’t mean we could just as easily do without one.  Naming focuses attention, clarifies intention, and provides a “master narrative” by which to understand ourselves and organize our efforts.  A name is a vitally important rallying point with the power to help build critical mass and carry us across the tipping point.

Yes, the term “New Age” has been maligned and misused and misunderstood to the point it barely conveys the meaning it once did.  Today, it generally means any kind of spacey, self-absorbed silliness.  This happened, in part, because of the efforts from competing philosophies to undermine the competition, much in the same way conservatives managed to turn the term “liberal“ -- once proudly claimed by politicians like Robert Kennedy -- into a slur that many politicians now determinedly dodge.  

But we would surely not say that we should dismiss the term liberal from the language.  Rather, liberals are often exhorted to rescue the term, reclaim it, and insist on its true meaning of care and social progress. 

In the same vein, it seems ridiculous to keep trying out different names for the New Age movement -- names that do not fit, do not stick, do not inspire.  We need to step up and reclaim the name that everyone already knows.  We need to rescue the term “New Age,” and insist on its true meaning as a philosophy of oneness and spirit and hope.

The “I have a dream” factor

No doubt some would say it is “unrealistic” to openly embrace a term with as much baggage as New Age, as unrealistic as many believe it is to envision a utopian New Age in the first place.  But as Michael Lerner writes, if you are a spiritual idealist, “the strategy of realism is a huge mistake.  When you stop asking, ‘What do I really believe in?’ and substitute instead a focus on asking, ’What is realistic?’ you are on a slippery slope toward the values of materialism and selfishness that receive much clearer statement” by others.

If we are going to change the world, Lerner continues, we have to stop worrying about being realistic and turn instead to our values, our ideals, our visionary hopefulness – “the kind of hopefulness that makes you willing to fight for your highest ideals and take risks to make them happen.”

The fact is, in spite of all efforts to sweep the New Age under the rug – or ridicule and demonize it out of existence -- the term has remained stubbornly sticky, still hanging on, more than a decade after the supposed death of the movement. 

Perhaps that is why even the pessimistic Sutcliffe says that the term "New Age" remains the idealistic/holistic/spiritual contingent's "one potentially explosive emblem" -- a potential thus far unrealized.

I propose that we help the emblem explode.

Go to How the New Age Can Save The World.