Spiritual Revolution or Elite Hobby?
Sociologists of religion are never quite sure what to make of the New Age movement. The ‘movement’ had, and perhaps still has, a distinct message concerning the primacy of individual spiritual experience and personal enquiry. But, unlike other new religious movements such as the Moonies or Krishna consciousness, it has no discernible organisation and its major spokespeople have always been clear about being part of a network rather than at the top of a religious hierarchy.

One academic perspective is that the new age movement is a transitional group whose major feature is a reiteration on a public stage of the esoteric, mystical and magical traditions – such as those of the gnostics, rosicrucians, kabbalists and many other occult groups. Another perspective sees the whole movement as a post-war, middle class, baby boomer phenomenon, as rich kids experimented with psychedelics, eastern religious practices and anything mystical they could their hands on. This is new age as shallow, ephemeral, individualistic, narcissistic, spiritual consumerism.

What is culturally confusing, however, is that the new age movement’s ideas have become generally accepted into metropolitan cultures all over the world. As publishers know, new age spirituality, once the preserve of a seeming elite, has transformed into a mass life style. You can see this in every national paper in their mind-body healthcare sections. From this perspective the new age movement appears to be both shallow and significant.

For one school of sociology, however, theorising about significance takes second place to observing and describing a social and historical phenomenon in the classic fashion of visiting enthnography. Live amongst the natives and report what you see. Steven Sutcliffe’s Children of the New Age (incomprehensibly sub-titled A History of Spiritual Practices) fits into this social anthropological category. He spent some time at the Findhorn Foundation, read some of the key texts, visited some other key people and places. Clothed in some interesting social theory, he reports on what he found. The descriptions are interesting but not deep. No one is spoken with at length. (I declare an interest here. I am frequently quoted and referred to throughout the book, but do not recall meeting the author.) The major body of core literature is not read. Incidentally, there is to my knowledge not a single sociologist of religion who has done proper research and thoroughly read the Steiner, Blavatsky, Bailey and Course in Miracles texts.

Nor is there an attempt to place the new age phenomenon within the larger context of the history of religion and the nature of postmodern spirituality.

Sutcliffe concludes by suggesting that the new age’s lack of organisational coherence means that the movement will have no significant effect, but this flies in the face of the actual reality of its immense cultural influence – or, at least, its significance as an indicator of things that were to come. Nor does Sutcliffe acknowledge that most basic of media-savvy insights, that the way in which decentralised information in the global village works, precisely gives power to a network rather than an organisation.

It ignores too, or dismisses, what I take to be the most vital revolution heralded by the new age pioneers – the emergence of a populist and democratic spiritual movement that empowers the individual, supports social and environmental morality, and deconstructs the repressive power structures of most traditional religious organisations.

If, however, you want a digest introduction to the major players and themes of the new age movement from the sixties onwards, and fancy getting up to speed with some contemporary approaches in social theory, then this book is a useful entry point.

William Bloom’s book on contemporary spirituality Soulution: The Holistic Manifesto was recently published. www.williambloom.com