WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.859 Welcome to this deep dive. It is March 5, 2026. 00:00:04.040 --> 00:00:07.740 And today we have a truly fascinating mission. 00:00:07.900 --> 00:00:10.080 We really do. We have a massive stack of research 00:00:10.080 --> 00:00:13.140 today. Yeah, a massive stack of historical accounts, 00:00:13.580 --> 00:00:16.859 sociological data, basically everything surrounding 00:00:16.859 --> 00:00:19.280 the New Age movement. And we are completely breaking 00:00:19.280 --> 00:00:21.820 it down for you. Right. And our goal today isn't 00:00:21.820 --> 00:00:24.079 just to talk about crystals and astrology. No, 00:00:24.179 --> 00:00:27.019 not at all. We want to unpack the actual history, 00:00:27.239 --> 00:00:30.850 the specific demographics, the... and the really 00:00:30.850 --> 00:00:33.289 intense controversies of a cultural phenomenon 00:00:33.289 --> 00:00:36.149 that fundamentally changed how the Western world 00:00:36.149 --> 00:00:38.229 thinks about spirituality. It really shifted 00:00:38.229 --> 00:00:40.189 everything. Okay, let's unpack this, because 00:00:40.189 --> 00:00:42.850 while you and basically everyone else have heard 00:00:42.850 --> 00:00:45.890 the term New Age, almost no scholar can actually 00:00:45.890 --> 00:00:47.990 agree on what it is. No, they can't. And ironically, 00:00:48.170 --> 00:00:50.549 most people who practice... The core tenets of 00:00:50.549 --> 00:00:52.990 this movement absolutely hate the label. I mean, 00:00:53.009 --> 00:00:55.250 it is a massive paradox right out of the gate. 00:00:55.369 --> 00:00:57.810 Yeah. The New Age isn't just a quirky trend from 00:00:57.810 --> 00:01:01.450 the 1970s involving incense and mood rings. Sociologists 00:01:01.450 --> 00:01:05.290 often refer to it as a cultic milieu, which is 00:01:05.290 --> 00:01:08.489 a somewhat academic way of describing a loosely 00:01:08.489 --> 00:01:12.000 connected underground network of shared. unorthodox 00:01:12.000 --> 00:01:14.760 ideas. It's not a church you can just join. Exactly. 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:18.939 It isn't an institution. It is a zeitgeist. It 00:01:18.939 --> 00:01:21.379 represents a fundamental shift in Western religion 00:01:21.379 --> 00:01:24.519 toward what is now called self -spirituality. 00:01:24.579 --> 00:01:27.200 Which is a huge concept. It is. Yeah. And over 00:01:27.200 --> 00:01:28.760 the course of this deep dive, we're going to 00:01:28.760 --> 00:01:32.120 trace its surprising historical roots, explore 00:01:32.120 --> 00:01:34.620 its core beliefs, examine the massive commercial 00:01:34.620 --> 00:01:37.379 boom in the 1980s, and finally... Look at the 00:01:37.379 --> 00:01:40.379 intense political and cultural backlash it faced 00:01:40.379 --> 00:01:42.549 from... almost every direction. Exactly. I want 00:01:42.549 --> 00:01:44.849 to start with the absolute chaos of just trying 00:01:44.849 --> 00:01:46.870 to define this thing. Because when you look at 00:01:46.870 --> 00:01:49.349 the historical data, historians tend to see the 00:01:49.349 --> 00:01:52.230 New Age as a perennial tradition, meaning they 00:01:52.230 --> 00:01:54.549 view it as the modern continuation of ancient 00:01:54.549 --> 00:01:56.969 mystical ideas that just always been around. 00:01:57.109 --> 00:01:59.290 Right. The long view. But then sociologists look 00:01:59.290 --> 00:02:02.409 at the exact same data and label it a new religious 00:02:02.409 --> 00:02:04.549 movement. A completely different categorization. 00:02:04.709 --> 00:02:06.689 Yeah. Yeah. And psychologists sometimes just 00:02:06.689 --> 00:02:08.789 dismiss the whole thing as a form of collective 00:02:08.789 --> 00:02:12.180 narcissism. It seems like a highly eclectic supermarket 00:02:12.180 --> 00:02:15.000 spirituality where seekers just wander the aisles 00:02:15.000 --> 00:02:17.580 and mix and match beliefs from around the world. 00:02:17.860 --> 00:02:20.960 So how did this smorgasbord approach actually 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:23.340 begin? Well, what's fascinating here is that 00:02:23.340 --> 00:02:26.840 the movement did not start at a 1960s music festival 00:02:26.840 --> 00:02:29.740 or in a California commune. That's the stereotype, 00:02:29.900 --> 00:02:32.620 right? It is. But its roots stretch way back 00:02:32.620 --> 00:02:35.800 to 18th and 19th century occultism. You have 00:02:35.800 --> 00:02:38.219 to look at figures like Emanuel Swedenborg. The 00:02:38.219 --> 00:02:40.620 Swedish scientist. Yes, an 18th century Swedish 00:02:40.620 --> 00:02:43.840 scientist and mystic. He claimed he experienced 00:02:43.840 --> 00:02:46.400 a profound spiritual awakening, which allowed 00:02:46.400 --> 00:02:49.659 him to freely visit. heaven and hell, and communicate 00:02:49.659 --> 00:02:52.740 directly with angels and spirits. Wow. His writings 00:02:52.740 --> 00:02:55.000 heavily influenced alternative spiritual thought. 00:02:55.199 --> 00:02:57.139 And then there's Franz Mesmer. Right, we still 00:02:57.139 --> 00:02:59.539 use the word mesmerized today. But his actual 00:02:59.539 --> 00:03:02.020 theories were quite literal. Right. Mesmer was 00:03:02.020 --> 00:03:05.199 a German physician in the 18th century who promoted 00:03:05.199 --> 00:03:07.840 the idea of animal magnetism. Right, this invisible 00:03:07.840 --> 00:03:11.419 fluid. Exactly. He believed there was an invisible 00:03:11.419 --> 00:03:13.840 magnetic fluid running through the human body 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:16.979 and the entire universe. If you were sick, it 00:03:16.979 --> 00:03:19.199 was because this fluid was blocked. And you could 00:03:19.199 --> 00:03:21.500 just fix it. A practitioner could manipulate 00:03:21.500 --> 00:03:25.620 this magnetic force to heal you. It sounds like 00:03:25.620 --> 00:03:27.919 science fiction now, but at the time, it was 00:03:27.919 --> 00:03:30.199 a massive craze that blurred the lines between 00:03:30.199 --> 00:03:33.400 medicine and mysticism. And those ideas fed directly 00:03:33.400 --> 00:03:36.199 into the spiritualism movement of the 1840s, 00:03:36.199 --> 00:03:38.560 where people were holding seances to speak to 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:41.560 the dead and later the Theosophical Society. 00:03:41.979 --> 00:03:44.599 Yes, the 1800s were huge for this. Theosophy 00:03:44.599 --> 00:03:46.759 always seems to pop up when we discuss alternative 00:03:46.759 --> 00:03:49.719 religions. Helena Blavatsky founded it in the 00:03:49.719 --> 00:03:52.439 late 19th century, and she claimed she was receiving 00:03:52.439 --> 00:03:55.379 telepathic messages from ancient hidden masters 00:03:55.379 --> 00:03:58.300 in Tibet. The ascended masters. Right. And she 00:03:58.300 --> 00:04:01.300 emphasized a focus on comparative global religions. 00:04:01.449 --> 00:04:04.689 trying to synthesize Eastern mysticism with Western 00:04:04.689 --> 00:04:07.110 esoteric traditions. Precisely. Those are the 00:04:07.110 --> 00:04:09.490 actual foundational building blocks. Swedenborg's 00:04:09.490 --> 00:04:12.590 angels, Mesmer's invisible healing forces, and 00:04:12.590 --> 00:04:14.889 Blavatsky's blending of global religions. That 00:04:14.889 --> 00:04:17.370 is the DNA of the New Age. It's all right there. 00:04:17.569 --> 00:04:19.689 But to see how it evolved into the modern movement, 00:04:19.910 --> 00:04:22.290 we have to look at what historians call the proto 00:04:22.290 --> 00:04:25.189 -New Age of the mid -20th century. Okay, picture 00:04:25.189 --> 00:04:28.329 being in the 1950s. The atomic bomb has just 00:04:28.329 --> 00:04:30.949 been invented. The Cold War is terrifying everyone. 00:04:31.230 --> 00:04:33.149 And some people start looking up at the sky, 00:04:33.449 --> 00:04:36.430 literally waiting for extraterrestrial salvation. 00:04:36.949 --> 00:04:40.269 UFO cults. Yeah, UFO religions like the Aetherius 00:04:40.269 --> 00:04:43.110 Society, predicting a coming age of peace brought 00:04:43.110 --> 00:04:47.009 about by highly evolved aliens. It's a wild jump 00:04:47.009 --> 00:04:50.889 from 19th century seances to 1950s flying saucers. 00:04:51.089 --> 00:04:53.550 It is a jump, but the underlying sentiment is 00:04:53.550 --> 00:04:55.990 exactly the same. the same. The belief that higher 00:04:55.990 --> 00:04:58.490 wisdom is available to save humanity from itself. 00:04:59.209 --> 00:05:02.050 From those UFO groups, this energy bleeds seamlessly 00:05:02.050 --> 00:05:04.970 into the 1960s counterculture. Which brings us 00:05:04.970 --> 00:05:07.449 to California. Right. You had the Eastland Institute 00:05:07.449 --> 00:05:10.410 springing up in California in 1962, focusing 00:05:10.410 --> 00:05:12.589 heavily on the human potential movement. The 00:05:12.589 --> 00:05:14.689 idea that humans have vast, untapped psychological 00:05:14.689 --> 00:05:17.470 and spiritual capabilities. And then across the 00:05:17.470 --> 00:05:20.189 world, you have the Finehorn Eco Village in Scotland. 00:05:20.550 --> 00:05:23.490 The records show they started as a tiny group 00:05:23.490 --> 00:05:26.750 of three people in a caravan park in 1962. Just 00:05:26.750 --> 00:05:28.939 three people. Yeah. And they claim... they were 00:05:28.939 --> 00:05:30.879 communicating with the spirits of plants, which 00:05:30.879 --> 00:05:33.959 they called devas, to grow these massive impossible 00:05:33.959 --> 00:05:37.160 vegetables in terrible sandy soil. Which got 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:38.699 them a lot of attention. A ton of attention. 00:05:39.000 --> 00:05:42.620 By 1972, their population had grown six -fold, 00:05:42.680 --> 00:05:45.740 booming into this massive countercultural hub 00:05:45.740 --> 00:05:49.300 for spiritual seekers worldwide. Findhorn is 00:05:49.300 --> 00:05:51.579 a perfect example of how these older esoteric 00:05:51.579 --> 00:05:53.579 ideas were passed down to the countercultural 00:05:53.579 --> 00:05:56.540 baby boomers. But having all these disparate 00:05:56.540 --> 00:06:00.199 groups, You know, UFO watchers, human potential 00:06:00.199 --> 00:06:02.680 advocates, people talking to plant spirits. It 00:06:02.680 --> 00:06:04.620 doesn't automatically make a cohesive movement. 00:06:04.759 --> 00:06:07.060 Right. They need a glue. Yes. To understand how 00:06:07.060 --> 00:06:08.959 they formed a single cultural force, you have 00:06:08.959 --> 00:06:10.980 to look at the core theology that binds them 00:06:10.980 --> 00:06:12.920 together. Which brings us to their view of the 00:06:12.920 --> 00:06:15.439 divine. They reject traditional concepts of God, 00:06:15.540 --> 00:06:17.839 particularly the Christian dualism of matter 00:06:17.839 --> 00:06:21.199 versus spirit. Can we unpack that dualism concept 00:06:21.199 --> 00:06:23.930 for a second? Certainly. Traditional Christian 00:06:23.930 --> 00:06:26.990 dualism often draws a hard line between the creator 00:06:26.990 --> 00:06:29.910 and the creation. God is up in heaven, perfectly 00:06:29.910 --> 00:06:32.509 divine, and the physical earth down here is fallen, 00:06:32.730 --> 00:06:35.750 messy, and separate. A clear division. The New 00:06:35.750 --> 00:06:39.230 Age. completely rejects that separation. They 00:06:39.230 --> 00:06:41.930 accept a holistic form of divinity, often describing 00:06:41.930 --> 00:06:44.509 it using terms like an ocean of oneness or a 00:06:44.509 --> 00:06:46.930 universal principle. Okay. They believe the universe 00:06:46.930 --> 00:06:49.509 is intricately connected, and more importantly, 00:06:49.730 --> 00:06:52.769 that the physical world itself is infused with 00:06:52.769 --> 00:06:55.029 the divine. So if the universe is an ocean of 00:06:55.029 --> 00:06:57.329 oneness, that means humans aren't just splashing 00:06:57.329 --> 00:06:59.610 around in the water. We are the water. That is 00:06:59.610 --> 00:07:02.009 the crucial pivot. They believe humans possess 00:07:02.009 --> 00:07:05.449 an inner godhead or a higher self. And that shifts 00:07:05.449 --> 00:07:07.970 the power dynamic of religion completely. How 00:07:07.970 --> 00:07:10.629 so? Well, if you possess a divine essence, then 00:07:10.629 --> 00:07:12.509 the individual becomes the ultimate spiritual 00:07:12.509 --> 00:07:15.670 authority. It is a radically democratic worldview. 00:07:15.930 --> 00:07:18.730 It actively rejects traditional religious dogma, 00:07:18.730 --> 00:07:21.110 external authority, and the Christian concepts 00:07:21.110 --> 00:07:23.389 of original sin and guilt. And replaces it with 00:07:23.389 --> 00:07:26.269 what? It replaces all of that with a focus on 00:07:26.269 --> 00:07:29.370 personal growth, positive thinking, and the absolute 00:07:29.370 --> 00:07:31.629 freedom of the individual to find their own truth. 00:07:32.060 --> 00:07:34.579 But wait, if the self is the ultimate authority 00:07:34.579 --> 00:07:37.500 and there are no traditional priests or ancient 00:07:37.500 --> 00:07:40.259 scriptures to guide you, how do people actually 00:07:40.259 --> 00:07:42.779 receive spiritual guidance? Doesn't that just 00:07:42.779 --> 00:07:45.199 lead to a free -for -all where anyone can claim 00:07:45.199 --> 00:07:47.379 to speak for the universe? That is exactly what 00:07:47.379 --> 00:07:49.439 happens. And it leads to one of the most prominent 00:07:49.439 --> 00:07:52.060 practices of the movement channeling. Channeling 00:07:52.060 --> 00:07:54.850 is fascinating. It's the idea that a human being 00:07:54.850 --> 00:07:57.490 can act as a conduit for non -human entities. 00:07:57.949 --> 00:08:01.110 A person might go into a deep trance or sometimes 00:08:01.110 --> 00:08:04.350 remain completely awake and conversational and 00:08:04.350 --> 00:08:07.850 just let spirits, angels, or even extraterrestrials 00:08:07.850 --> 00:08:09.850 speak through them. We see this a lot in the 00:08:09.850 --> 00:08:12.009 literature. Yeah, we have famous historical examples 00:08:12.009 --> 00:08:15.410 like Jane Roberts, who in the 1960s and 70s channeled 00:08:15.410 --> 00:08:18.509 an entity she simply called Seth. The Seth material 00:08:18.509 --> 00:08:20.750 became foundational reading for the movement. 00:08:20.910 --> 00:08:23.279 And it didn't stop in the 70s. You have J .Z. 00:08:23.300 --> 00:08:26.339 Knight, who built an entire empire around channeling 00:08:26.339 --> 00:08:29.899 an entity named Rompha. Oh, Rompha. He's described 00:08:29.899 --> 00:08:32.860 as a 30 ,000 -year -old warrior from the lost 00:08:32.860 --> 00:08:35.519 mythical continent of Lemuria. Quite the origin 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:38.059 story. Right. And thousands of people would pay 00:08:38.059 --> 00:08:41.059 significant money to sit in an auditorium and 00:08:41.059 --> 00:08:43.539 listen to Jay -Z Knight speaking in a distinct 00:08:43.539 --> 00:08:46.960 accent, dispense life advice and spiritual wisdom 00:08:46.960 --> 00:08:49.120 from this ancient warrior. And people took it 00:08:49.120 --> 00:08:51.240 very seriously. They really did. And then there 00:08:51.240 --> 00:08:54.000 is Helen Schickman, a clinical psychologist who 00:08:54.000 --> 00:08:56.740 channeled a wildly popular text called A Course 00:08:56.740 --> 00:09:00.179 in Miracles. She claimed the inner voice dictating 00:09:00.179 --> 00:09:03.730 the text to her was actually Jesus Christ. what 00:09:03.730 --> 00:09:06.250 stands out to you think about how these modern 00:09:06.250 --> 00:09:08.509 channeled texts are treated by practitioners 00:09:08.509 --> 00:09:11.389 they aren't just read as interesting self -help 00:09:11.389 --> 00:09:14.330 books they are treated with the exact same reverence 00:09:14.330 --> 00:09:16.509 that mainstream religions reserve for ancient 00:09:16.509 --> 00:09:18.870 scriptures it was a profound democratization 00:09:18.870 --> 00:09:21.610 of revelation in traditional faiths revelation 00:09:21.610 --> 00:09:23.789 is historical it happened thousands of years 00:09:23.789 --> 00:09:26.730 ago to specific chosen prophets on mountain talks 00:09:26.730 --> 00:09:29.639 right it's in the past but in the new age Revelation 00:09:29.639 --> 00:09:32.519 is ongoing, immediate, and theoretically accessible 00:09:32.519 --> 00:09:35.940 to anyone sitting in their living room. But this 00:09:35.940 --> 00:09:38.779 brings us to another foundational concept, which 00:09:38.779 --> 00:09:41.789 gives the movement its actual name. the way they 00:09:41.789 --> 00:09:44.529 view time and history. Right, because New Age 00:09:44.529 --> 00:09:46.549 isn't just a catchy marketing term. They rely 00:09:46.549 --> 00:09:48.990 heavily on astrological cycles to understand 00:09:48.990 --> 00:09:51.889 human history. The overarching narrative is that 00:09:51.889 --> 00:09:54.590 humanity once lived in a golden age of spiritual 00:09:54.590 --> 00:09:57.370 wisdom, often associated with those lost continents 00:09:57.370 --> 00:10:00.210 like Atlantis or Lemuria. But then we fell into 00:10:00.210 --> 00:10:02.789 a dark period of spiritual decline and rigid 00:10:02.789 --> 00:10:05.809 dogma, which they call the Age of Pisces. And 00:10:05.809 --> 00:10:08.090 the Age of Pisces is associated with the last 00:10:08.090 --> 00:10:10.850 2 ,000 years of history. heavily tied to the 00:10:10.850 --> 00:10:13.389 dominance of traditional institutional religions. 00:10:13.690 --> 00:10:15.970 Here's where it gets really interesting, because 00:10:15.970 --> 00:10:18.149 the entire animating force of the movement is 00:10:18.149 --> 00:10:20.190 the belief that the age of Pisces is finally 00:10:20.190 --> 00:10:23.169 ending. We are supposedly entering the age of 00:10:23.169 --> 00:10:26.570 Aquarius, this promised utopian era of universal 00:10:26.570 --> 00:10:29.169 love, peace, abundance, and spiritual harmony. 00:10:29.350 --> 00:10:31.899 The dawn of a new era. Yeah, but looking at the 00:10:31.899 --> 00:10:34.919 historical timelines, nobody can agree on when 00:10:34.919 --> 00:10:38.059 the VIP doors to this new age actually open. 00:10:38.240 --> 00:10:41.139 The dates are incredibly fractured. Some prominent 00:10:41.139 --> 00:10:42.919 writers, like David Spangler, claimed it started 00:10:42.919 --> 00:10:46.419 back in 1967. You even see it popping up in 1960s 00:10:46.419 --> 00:10:48.720 pop culture, like the famous song from the musical 00:10:48.720 --> 00:10:51.919 Hair. Right, the Age of Aquarius. Exactly. Others 00:10:51.919 --> 00:10:54.299 said it kicked off during a massive, globally 00:10:54.299 --> 00:10:57.220 synchronized meditation event called the Harmonic 00:10:57.220 --> 00:11:00.179 Convergence in 1987. Some pushed the date. to 00:11:00.179 --> 00:11:03.379 12, tying it to the Mayan calendar, and others 00:11:03.379 --> 00:11:05.740 argue mathematically that, astronomically speaking, 00:11:06.019 --> 00:11:08.629 it won't happen for centuries. And while they 00:11:08.629 --> 00:11:11.389 wait for this new age to fully arrive, practitioners 00:11:11.389 --> 00:11:13.649 try to bring it about by merging their spirituality 00:11:13.649 --> 00:11:16.769 with modern science. The new age draws heavily 00:11:16.769 --> 00:11:19.389 on the new physics. Authors like Fritjof Capra, 00:11:19.450 --> 00:11:21.610 who wrote the massive bestseller The Tao of Physics, 00:11:21.809 --> 00:11:23.990 argued that the discoveries of quantum mechanics, 00:11:24.169 --> 00:11:26.590 the way subatomic particles behave in seemingly 00:11:26.590 --> 00:11:29.690 impossible interconnected ways, perfectly mirror 00:11:29.690 --> 00:11:32.289 ancient Eastern mysticism. They also heavily 00:11:32.289 --> 00:11:35.389 adopt James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis. Yeah. 00:11:36.230 --> 00:11:38.850 Lovelock proposed the scientific idea that the 00:11:38.850 --> 00:11:41.590 Earth's biological and physical systems act together 00:11:41.590 --> 00:11:44.269 as a self -regulating system. Like a single entity. 00:11:44.549 --> 00:11:48.049 Exactly. The New Age takes that ecological science 00:11:48.049 --> 00:11:50.889 and pushes it further into theology, claiming 00:11:50.889 --> 00:11:53.669 the Earth isn't just a system, it is a conscious 00:11:53.669 --> 00:11:57.190 living organism. Now, the academic and scientific 00:11:57.190 --> 00:11:59.750 establishments largely dismiss new age science 00:11:59.750 --> 00:12:02.570 as pseudoscience or misunderstanding of quantum 00:12:02.570 --> 00:12:05.389 mechanics. But for the practitioners, that dismissal 00:12:05.389 --> 00:12:07.570 doesn't matter. They believe they are at the 00:12:07.570 --> 00:12:10.110 forefront of a major paradigm shift that will 00:12:10.110 --> 00:12:12.750 eventually replace outmoded rationalist dogmas 00:12:12.750 --> 00:12:15.210 entirely. So if the age of Aquarius is supposedly 00:12:15.210 --> 00:12:17.909 dawning, who exactly is standing at the welcome 00:12:17.909 --> 00:12:20.470 gates? Let's talk about the demographics of these 00:12:20.470 --> 00:12:22.429 practitioners. There was a major sociological 00:12:22.429 --> 00:12:24.669 study done in the UK called the Kendall Project, 00:12:24.970 --> 00:12:27.830 conducted by scholars Paul Helas and Linda Woodhead. 00:12:27.970 --> 00:12:30.230 A very important study. They went into an English 00:12:30.230 --> 00:12:33.009 town to map out the spiritual landscape, and 00:12:33.009 --> 00:12:34.990 they found that of the people actively participating 00:12:34.990 --> 00:12:38.690 in New Age activities, 80 % were female, and 00:12:38.690 --> 00:12:42.750 73 % were over the age of 45. Those numbers are 00:12:42.750 --> 00:12:45.570 incredibly revealing, and they map to trends 00:12:45.570 --> 00:12:48.909 in North America as well. Heelas and Woodhead 00:12:48.909 --> 00:12:52.090 analyzed why this specific demographic, middle 00:12:52.090 --> 00:12:54.250 -aged women, dominated the movement. And what 00:12:54.250 --> 00:12:56.730 did they find? Their conclusion was tied to the 00:12:56.730 --> 00:12:59.009 deeply entrenched cultural values and divisions 00:12:59.009 --> 00:13:02.250 of labor in Western society. Women have traditionally 00:13:02.250 --> 00:13:04.509 been accorded the primary responsibility for 00:13:04.509 --> 00:13:06.710 the care and well -being of others, children, 00:13:07.009 --> 00:13:09.509 aging parents, husbands. And they noted that 00:13:09.509 --> 00:13:12.039 when a woman reaches middle age, Often the children 00:13:12.039 --> 00:13:14.879 are growing up or leaving home. She is suddenly 00:13:14.879 --> 00:13:17.320 freed from the intense daily demands of those 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:19.899 child rearing duties, but she has spent her entire 00:13:19.899 --> 00:13:22.559 adult life encumbered by societal expectations 00:13:22.559 --> 00:13:25.779 of caregiving. Exactly. And then here comes the 00:13:25.779 --> 00:13:29.019 new age with its intense focus on the self, personal 00:13:29.019 --> 00:13:32.039 healing, discovering your inner voice and prioritizing 00:13:32.039 --> 00:13:34.159 your own inner development. It's a complete shift 00:13:34.159 --> 00:13:37.309 in focus. It is. It offers a highly attractive 00:13:37.309 --> 00:13:40.289 culturally sanctioned space for these women to 00:13:40.289 --> 00:13:42.929 finally focus on themselves without feeling selfish. 00:13:43.250 --> 00:13:46.389 It frames self -care as a profound spiritual 00:13:46.389 --> 00:13:49.210 duty. The demographic data also shows this is 00:13:49.210 --> 00:13:51.570 largely a white middle class to upper middle 00:13:51.570 --> 00:13:54.230 class movement. Most active participants have 00:13:54.230 --> 00:13:56.750 a university or college degree, which brings 00:13:56.750 --> 00:13:59.110 us to a really fascinating tension of money. 00:13:59.509 --> 00:14:02.190 Because this wasn't just happening at small weekend 00:14:02.190 --> 00:14:04.789 mind, body, spirit fairs and local community 00:14:04.789 --> 00:14:08.009 halls. The commercialization of the new age was 00:14:08.009 --> 00:14:10.309 massive. Well, it became an industry. A huge 00:14:10.309 --> 00:14:13.570 one. In the 1980s, you had massive multinational 00:14:13.570 --> 00:14:16.289 corporations. We're talking IBM, AT &T, General 00:14:16.289 --> 00:14:19.000 Motors. bringing in new age seminars to train 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:20.799 their workforce. They called it transformational 00:14:20.799 --> 00:14:22.940 training. Mystics, basically. Yeah. They were 00:14:22.940 --> 00:14:25.279 bringing in concepts derived from human potential 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.899 movements to teach positive thinking, visualization, 00:14:28.379 --> 00:14:30.980 and self -actualization. Why? Because they were 00:14:30.980 --> 00:14:32.700 hoping these personal growth techniques would 00:14:32.700 --> 00:14:35.740 break down psychological barriers and boost employee 00:14:35.740 --> 00:14:37.940 productivity, sales, and corporate efficiency. 00:14:38.320 --> 00:14:40.179 This raises an important question, doesn't it? 00:14:40.360 --> 00:14:43.200 The new age was born out of the 1960s counterculture. 00:14:43.470 --> 00:14:46.649 The early days at Eastland or Finehorn were inherently 00:14:46.649 --> 00:14:50.230 anti -establishment, anti -consumerist, and focused 00:14:50.230 --> 00:14:53.570 on communal living. Yet by the 1980s, it had 00:14:53.570 --> 00:14:56.509 evolved into what sociologists term New Age capitalism. 00:14:57.120 --> 00:15:00.200 You had a booming global market. People were 00:15:00.200 --> 00:15:03.080 buying shelves of paperback books, booking expensive 00:15:03.080 --> 00:15:05.980 crystal healing sessions, paying for high -end 00:15:05.980 --> 00:15:08.460 alternative therapies, and fueling a massive 00:15:08.460 --> 00:15:11.120 music industry. Think of ambient music pioneers 00:15:11.120 --> 00:15:13.559 like Brian Eno. The soundtrack of the movement. 00:15:13.700 --> 00:15:16.139 Right. His relaxing electronic styles essentially 00:15:16.139 --> 00:15:18.500 became the soundtrack for this multi -million 00:15:18.500 --> 00:15:20.740 dollar industry. You have a movement supposedly 00:15:20.740 --> 00:15:23.460 focused on egalitarianism suddenly colliding 00:15:23.460 --> 00:15:26.139 with capitalistic private enterprise where spiritual 00:15:26.139 --> 00:15:28.110 and Enlightenment is packaged, marketed and sold 00:15:28.110 --> 00:15:30.750 as a consumer lifestyle product. And some early 00:15:30.750 --> 00:15:33.309 New Age authors like David Spangler actively 00:15:33.309 --> 00:15:36.009 criticized this shift. He argued the movement 00:15:36.009 --> 00:15:38.769 was losing its social conscience, abandoning 00:15:38.769 --> 00:15:41.149 its goal of changing the world and just becoming 00:15:41.149 --> 00:15:44.340 a tool for personal narcissism. And that tension 00:15:44.340 --> 00:15:47.460 between focusing inward on personal growth versus 00:15:47.460 --> 00:15:50.259 focusing outward on societal change pushes us 00:15:50.259 --> 00:15:52.299 right into the politics of the new age. And just 00:15:52.299 --> 00:15:54.639 as a quick note to you listening, whenever we 00:15:54.639 --> 00:15:57.019 hit politically charged topics like this, we 00:15:57.019 --> 00:15:59.840 are not endorsing any side. We're just impartially 00:15:59.840 --> 00:16:01.639 reporting the facts and viewpoints straight from 00:16:01.639 --> 00:16:04.559 our sources. So keeping strictly to the data, 00:16:04.700 --> 00:16:07.480 new age politics does not fit neatly into any 00:16:07.480 --> 00:16:10.039 traditional boxes. Scholars note that standard 00:16:10.039 --> 00:16:12.240 labels like left, right, liberal or conservative. 00:16:12.840 --> 00:16:14.779 just missed the mark. A prime example of this 00:16:14.779 --> 00:16:17.139 political philosophy is Mark Satin, who wrote 00:16:17.139 --> 00:16:19.639 a highly influential book in 1979 called New 00:16:19.639 --> 00:16:22.299 Age Politics. He argued for a radical middle 00:16:22.299 --> 00:16:24.919 or a third force. A completely different approach. 00:16:25.139 --> 00:16:28.299 Yes. Instead of just focusing on economic policies 00:16:28.299 --> 00:16:30.840 or institutional symptoms, which is what traditional 00:16:30.840 --> 00:16:33.740 politicians argue about, Satin believed society 00:16:33.740 --> 00:16:36.519 needed to focus on the psychocultural roots of 00:16:36.519 --> 00:16:39.909 our problems. You can't just pass a law to fix 00:16:39.909 --> 00:16:42.470 poverty. You have to shift human consciousness 00:16:42.470 --> 00:16:45.629 to value cooperation over competition. It's a 00:16:45.629 --> 00:16:47.889 much deeper change they were after. Exactly. 00:16:48.090 --> 00:16:51.090 New agers typically advocate for environmentalism, 00:16:51.149 --> 00:16:54.470 holistic thinking, and global unity. Interestingly, 00:16:54.730 --> 00:16:58.409 some favor extreme decentralization, moving power 00:16:58.409 --> 00:17:00.690 away from nation states to local communities, 00:17:00.889 --> 00:17:03.289 while others advocate for the exact opposite, 00:17:03.470 --> 00:17:06.319 a centralized global government. to manage planetary 00:17:06.319 --> 00:17:09.099 resources. The most prominent contemporary example 00:17:09.099 --> 00:17:11.859 of New Age politics in action is Marianne Williamson. 00:17:12.019 --> 00:17:14.599 She's a longtime bestselling New Age author who 00:17:14.599 --> 00:17:17.019 ran for seat in the U .S. Congress and then ran 00:17:17.019 --> 00:17:19.240 for the Democratic nomination for the U .S. presidency, 00:17:19.559 --> 00:17:22.180 first in 2020 and again for the 2024 election, 00:17:22.480 --> 00:17:25.619 ending her most recent bid in July 2024. A very 00:17:25.619 --> 00:17:28.460 public figure for the movement. Very. Her political 00:17:28.460 --> 00:17:30.759 platform heavily pushed a vision of spiritual 00:17:30.759 --> 00:17:33.920 politics. She talked about aiming to fix the 00:17:33.920 --> 00:17:36.539 country with tough love and specifically addressing 00:17:36.539 --> 00:17:39.259 what she viewed as a swerve away from America's 00:17:39.259 --> 00:17:41.960 ethical and spiritual center. And just as New 00:17:41.960 --> 00:17:45.039 Age politics drew intense public scrutiny, the 00:17:45.039 --> 00:17:47.799 movement as a whole faced severe cultural and 00:17:47.799 --> 00:17:50.759 religious backlash. On the Christian front, mainstream 00:17:50.759 --> 00:17:54.410 denominations largely rejected it. By the 1980s, 00:17:54.410 --> 00:17:56.890 evangelical Christian groups viewed the New Age 00:17:56.890 --> 00:18:00.009 as a very real, very significant spiritual threat. 00:18:00.190 --> 00:18:02.329 Yeah, there was a best -selling novel by Frank 00:18:02.329 --> 00:18:05.089 E. Peretti called This Present Darkness. It sold 00:18:05.089 --> 00:18:07.710 over a million copies and heavily shaped evangelical 00:18:07.710 --> 00:18:10.390 views by framing the New Age movement as part 00:18:10.390 --> 00:18:12.769 of a literal demonic conspiracy to overthrow 00:18:12.769 --> 00:18:15.490 Christianity and establish a secular global order. 00:18:15.769 --> 00:18:17.930 And the pushback wasn't just limited to evangelical 00:18:17.930 --> 00:18:20.390 circles. The Vatican formally weighed in as well. 00:18:20.910 --> 00:18:23.589 In 2003, they published a 90 -page document explicitly 00:18:23.589 --> 00:18:25.930 warning Catholics against engaging in New Age 00:18:25.930 --> 00:18:28.890 practices. 90 pages. Yes, it was comprehensive. 00:18:29.269 --> 00:18:31.789 They called out things like yoga, feng shui, 00:18:31.990 --> 00:18:34.890 and crystal healing. The Vatican's theological 00:18:34.890 --> 00:18:37.910 concern was pantheism, the idea that God is in 00:18:37.910 --> 00:18:40.710 everything. They warned that the euphoric, peaceful 00:18:40.710 --> 00:18:42.910 states achieved through these physical practices 00:18:42.910 --> 00:18:45.450 should not be confused with the actual presence 00:18:45.450 --> 00:18:48.279 of the Holy Spirit or genuine grace. But the 00:18:48.279 --> 00:18:51.299 criticism didn't just come from mainstream monotheistic 00:18:51.299 --> 00:18:54.680 religions. Modern pagans or neo -pagans also 00:18:54.680 --> 00:18:58.160 push back incredibly hard. Now, outsiders often 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:00.559 confuse pagans and New Agers because they both 00:19:00.559 --> 00:19:03.200 utilize alternative spiritualities. But within 00:19:03.200 --> 00:19:06.160 those communities, the divide is sharp. Why did 00:19:06.160 --> 00:19:08.539 the pagan community reject them so fiercely? 00:19:08.720 --> 00:19:10.980 The core of the pagan critique is about balance. 00:19:11.580 --> 00:19:14.319 Pagans criticize New Agers for focusing exclusively 00:19:14.319 --> 00:19:17.220 on light, peace, higher consciousness, and positive 00:19:17.220 --> 00:19:19.779 vibrations, while completely ignoring the darker, 00:19:19.859 --> 00:19:22.079 savage realities of the natural world. Right. 00:19:22.160 --> 00:19:25.539 Nature isn't just sunshine. Exactly. Paganism 00:19:25.539 --> 00:19:28.240 often embraces the full cycle of nature, which 00:19:28.240 --> 00:19:31.640 includes decay, death, and destruction. They 00:19:31.640 --> 00:19:33.900 viewed the New Age approach as superficial and 00:19:33.900 --> 00:19:36.819 deeply unbalanced, a form of toxic positivity 00:19:36.819 --> 00:19:39.779 before that term existed. In fact, many pagans 00:19:39.779 --> 00:19:41.980 actually used the term New Age as an insult within 00:19:41.980 --> 00:19:44.319 their own communities to describe someone they 00:19:44.319 --> 00:19:46.779 think as being spiritually shallow. So what does 00:19:46.779 --> 00:19:48.859 this all mean? We have Christians calling it 00:19:48.859 --> 00:19:51.710 a threat and pagans calling it shallow. But the 00:19:51.710 --> 00:19:53.490 most severe critique came regarding cultural 00:19:53.490 --> 00:19:56.930 appropriation. New Asians have a well -documented 00:19:56.930 --> 00:19:59.329 tendency to borrow spiritual practices from other 00:19:59.329 --> 00:20:02.210 cultures, whether it's adopting Hindu yoga, Chinese 00:20:02.210 --> 00:20:05.329 feng shui, or South American ayahuasca ceremonies. 00:20:06.109 --> 00:20:09.690 This eclectic mixing drew severe, organized criticism 00:20:09.690 --> 00:20:12.369 from indigenous communities who accused the new 00:20:12.369 --> 00:20:14.789 age of cultural imperialism and the exploitation 00:20:14.789 --> 00:20:17.250 of their sacred intellectual property. For indigenous 00:20:17.250 --> 00:20:19.430 American leaders, this wasn't just an academic 00:20:19.430 --> 00:20:21.809 debate. It was an active threat to their cultural 00:20:21.809 --> 00:20:24.950 survival. Elders councils from the Lakota, Cheyenne, 00:20:25.089 --> 00:20:27.809 Navajo, Hopi, and others gathered and issued 00:20:27.809 --> 00:20:30.150 a formal declaration of war against exploiters 00:20:30.150 --> 00:20:32.650 of Lakota spirituality. A literal declaration. 00:20:33.069 --> 00:20:37.259 Yes. They reached a unified consensus to actively 00:20:37.259 --> 00:20:40.339 reject the expropriation of their ceremonial 00:20:40.339 --> 00:20:43.279 ways by non -Native people. They strongly condemned 00:20:43.279 --> 00:20:46.160 individuals they termed plastic shamans or plastic 00:20:46.160 --> 00:20:48.599 medicine people. These are outsiders who have 00:20:48.599 --> 00:20:51.240 no genuine lived connection to the culture or 00:20:51.240 --> 00:20:54.589 the community, but who appropriate... trivialize 00:20:54.589 --> 00:20:57.250 and then financially profit from sacred indigenous 00:20:57.250 --> 00:20:59.789 ceremonies. It's a very serious accusation. They 00:20:59.789 --> 00:21:02.250 pointed out the deep irony and harm of white 00:21:02.250 --> 00:21:04.529 practitioners paying thousands of dollars to 00:21:04.529 --> 00:21:07.670 sit in unregulated sweat lodges, while historically 00:21:07.670 --> 00:21:10.369 native people were legally banned by the government 00:21:10.369 --> 00:21:12.369 from practicing those exact same ceremonies. 00:21:12.670 --> 00:21:14.690 The indigenous leaders stated clearly that this 00:21:14.690 --> 00:21:17.089 behavior exploits their ways for selfish gain. 00:21:17.349 --> 00:21:20.170 It is a profound critique that highlights the 00:21:20.170 --> 00:21:22.369 major blind spots of supermarket spirituality. 00:21:23.120 --> 00:21:25.599 When you truly believe the individual is the 00:21:25.599 --> 00:21:27.960 ultimate spiritual authority, entitled to any 00:21:27.960 --> 00:21:29.740 practice from anywhere in the world that aids 00:21:29.740 --> 00:21:32.299 their personal growth, you can very easily ignore 00:21:32.299 --> 00:21:34.720 the cultural context, the historical trauma, 00:21:34.839 --> 00:21:36.539 and the communal boundaries of the traditions 00:21:36.539 --> 00:21:38.440 you are borrowing from. You just take what you 00:21:38.440 --> 00:21:41.519 want and leave the rest. Exactly. It forces us 00:21:41.519 --> 00:21:43.539 to look critically at the legacy of the New Age. 00:21:44.200 --> 00:21:46.960 Today, this specific label New Age has largely 00:21:46.960 --> 00:21:49.839 fallen out of fashion. Practitioners increasingly 00:21:49.839 --> 00:21:52.839 reject the term because it is seen as pejorative, 00:21:52.980 --> 00:21:55.839 associated with 1980s commercialism and shallow 00:21:55.839 --> 00:21:58.559 crystal healing. Some sociologists in the late 00:21:58.559 --> 00:22:01.539 1990s even declared the movement dead. They did, 00:22:01.740 --> 00:22:05.019 but modern analysis strongly disagrees. If we 00:22:05.019 --> 00:22:07.200 connect this to the bigger picture, the movement 00:22:07.200 --> 00:22:10.460 as a specific labeled group may have faded, but 00:22:10.460 --> 00:22:12.839 the sentiment has completely won out. It has 00:22:12.839 --> 00:22:15.000 entirely permeated the sociocultural landscape 00:22:15.000 --> 00:22:17.640 of the West. It's just everywhere now. It is. 00:22:18.029 --> 00:22:20.309 Practices that were once considered radical fringe, 00:22:20.650 --> 00:22:22.910 like alternative medicine, mindfulness meditation 00:22:22.910 --> 00:22:25.809 in schools, corporate wellness retreats, and 00:22:25.809 --> 00:22:28.369 the broad concept of everyday spirituality, are 00:22:28.369 --> 00:22:30.609 now standard, multi -billion dollar societal 00:22:30.609 --> 00:22:33.670 norms. The incredibly common modern demographic 00:22:33.670 --> 00:22:35.829 of people who confidently identify as spiritual 00:22:35.829 --> 00:22:38.130 but not religious is the direct descendant of 00:22:38.130 --> 00:22:40.750 this exact cultural shift. which leaves us with 00:22:40.750 --> 00:22:43.390 a fascinating reality to ponder i want to thank 00:22:43.390 --> 00:22:45.390 you for joining us on this deep dive today but 00:22:45.390 --> 00:22:47.829 before we go i want to leave you with one final 00:22:47.829 --> 00:22:50.390 thought based on everything we've unpacked about 00:22:50.390 --> 00:22:53.029 this historical shift let's hear it the absolute 00:22:53.029 --> 00:22:55.529 core of new age thought is that the self is the 00:22:55.529 --> 00:22:58.509 ultimate authority that you alone curate your 00:22:58.509 --> 00:23:01.170 own reality your own truth and your own distinct 00:23:01.170 --> 00:23:03.910 spiritual path Now look at the world we live 00:23:03.910 --> 00:23:06.130 in today. We live in an era where personalized 00:23:06.130 --> 00:23:08.970 algorithms, self -curated media feeds, and custom 00:23:08.970 --> 00:23:11.569 -tailored echo chambers completely dominate our 00:23:11.569 --> 00:23:14.809 daily reality. So, has the new age actually ended? 00:23:14.990 --> 00:23:17.609 Or has its ultimate goal, a world built entirely 00:23:17.609 --> 00:23:19.990 around the absolute authority of the individual 00:23:19.990 --> 00:23:22.869 self, just seamlessly evolved into the foundational 00:23:22.869 --> 00:23:25.390 blueprint of our modern digital lives? Something 00:23:25.390 --> 00:23:26.529 to think about. We'll see you next time.