After the New Age: Is there a Next Age?

Bibliography

Bailey, Alice (1944, 1955). Discipleship in the New Age. 2 vols. New York: Lucis.

Bailey, Alice (1948). The Reappearance of the Christ. New York: Lucis.

Brown, Dan (2003). The Da Vinci Code. London: Bantam.

Brown, Mick (1998). The Spiritual Tourist: a personal odyssey through the outer reaches of belief. London: Bloomsbury.

Cambell, Colin (1972). "The Cult, the Cultic Milieu and Secularisation"; in Hill, M. (ed.) (1972). A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5: 119-136.

Carrette, Jeremy and Richard King (2005). Selling Spirituality: The silent takeover of religion. London: Routledge.

Chryssides, George D. (1999). Exploring New Religions. London: Cassell.

Corrywright, Dominic (2004). "Network Spirituality: The Schumacher-Resurgence-Kumar Nexus". Journal of Contemporary Religion 19(3): 311-327.

Dowling, Levi H. (1985). The Aquarian gospel of Jesus the Christ: the philosophic and practical basis of the religion of the Aquarian age of the world, transcribed from the Akashic records by Levi. Romford, Kent: Fowler.

Ferguson, Marilyn (1980, 1987). The Aquarian Conspiracy: Personal and Social Transformation in Our Time. New York: Putnam.

Gerlach, Luther P. and Virginia H. Hine (1970). People, Power, Change: Movements of Social Transformation. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill.

Hackett, Rosalind (1992). "New Age Trends in Nigeria: Ancestral and/or Alien Religion?" in Lewis, James R. and J. Gordon Melton (eds.), Perspectives on the New Age. Albany: State University of New York: 215-231.

Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (1996). New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought. Leiden: E. J. Brill.

Heelas, Paul (1996). The New Age Movement. Oxford: Blackwell.

Hill, Michael (1972). A Sociological Yearbook of Religion in Britain 5. London: S.C.M.

Kemp, Daren (2003). The Christaquarians? A Sociology of Christians in the New Age. Sidcup, Kent: Kempress.

Kersten, Holger (1986). Jesus Lived in India: His Unknown Life before and after the Crucifixion. Shaftesbury: Element.

Lemesurier, Peter (1990). This New Age Business: The story of the ancient and continuing quest to bring down Heaven on Earth. Forres: The Findhorn Press.

Naisbitt, John and Patricia Aburdene (1990). Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990’s. New York: William Morrow and Co. (1990). Cited at www.adherents.com Accessed 20 January 2006.

Principe, Walter (1983). "Toward Defining Spirituality". Sciences Religieuses / Studies in Religion 12: 127-141.

Rowe, Dorothy (2001). "What Do You Mean by Spiritual?" in King-Spooner, Simon and Craig Newnes (eds.), Spirituality and Psychotherapy. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS.

Schucman, Helen (1985). A Course in Miracles. Tiburon, Calif.: Foundation for Inner Peace.

Spangler, David (1971). Revelation: The Birth of a New Age. Forres: The Findhorn Foundation.

Streiker, Lowell (1990). New Age comes to Mainstreet. Nashville: Abingdon Press.

Sutcliffe, Steven J. (2003). Children of the New Age: A history of spiritual practices. London: Routledge.

Trevelyan, George (1977). A Vision of the Aquarian Age. London: Coventure.

VisionNet Census; original source: Statistics New Zealand; cited in www.adherents.com Accessed 20 January 2006.

York, Michael (2003). Historical Dictionary of New Age Movements. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Data taken from New Zealand national censuses, based on self-identification, down to denominational level. Total 1996 NZ population: 3,616,633. Listed in table as "Other New Age religions not classified elsewhere".

This paper forms part of a chapter entitled "Defining the New Age" in KEMP, DAREN and LEWIS, JAMES R. (2007), Handbook of New Age. Leiden: Brill, pp.10-16, 22-23. ISBN 9789004153554.
CESNUR: The Center for Studies on New Religions

http://www.cesnur.org/about.htm [e-mail]
CESNUR, the Center for Studies on New Religions (Via Confienza 19, 10121 Torino, Italy, phone [phone], fax [phone]) was established in 1988 by a group of religious scholars from leading universities in Europe and the Americas. Its managing director, Professor Massimo Introvigne, has held teaching positions in the field of sociology and history of religion in a number of Italian universities. He is the author of twenty-three books and the editor of another ten in the field of religious sciences. CESNUR's original aim was to offer a professional association to scholars specialized in religious minorities, new religious movements, contemporary esoteric, spiritual and gnostic schools, and the new religious consciousness in general. In the 1990s it became apparent that inaccurate information was being disseminated to the media and the public powers by activists associated with the international anti-cult movement. Some new religious movements also disseminated unreliable or partisan information. CESNUR became more pro-active and started supplying information on a regular basis, opening public centers and organising conferences and seminars for the general public in a variety of countries. Today CESNUR is a network of independent but related organizations of scholars in various countries, devoted to promote scholarly research in the field of new religious consciousness, to spread reliable and responsible information, and to expose the very real problems associated with some movements, while at the same time defending everywhere the principles of religious liberty.
While established in 1988 by scholars who were mostly Roman Catholic, CESNUR has had from its very beginning boards of directors including scholars of a variety of religious persuasions. It is independent from any Church, denomination or religious movement. CESNUR International was recognized as a public non-profit entity in 1996 by the Italian authorities, who are the main current contributors to its projects. It is also financed by royalties on the books it publishes with different publishers, and by contributions of the members. As a public non-profit entity, accounts of its projects are filed with the Region of Piedmont, in Italy.

The International Center and Library

Professor Massimo Introvigne, the managing director of CESNUR, started collecting books on minority religions and esoteric-gnostic schools in the 1970s. His collection now includes more than 60,000 volumes and complete or semi-complete runs of more than 200 journals and magazines. While remaining his personal property, it is housed by CESNUR and open to the public from Monday to Friday (except July) from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 2 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. at the International Center of Via Confienza 19, Torino. Continuously updated and fully indexed on computer, it is regarded as the largest collection in Europe and the second in the world in its field. A librarian and a research assistant work at the International Center, guiding visitors from all over the world, answering requests for information and updating files on hundreds of religious movements.

The Web Site

CESNUR International may be reached on the Internet at http://www.cesnur.org. It includes news on future CESNUR activities and a library of selected papers on a wide variety of topics.

Conferences and Seminars

CESNUR's yearly annual conference is the largest world gathering of those active in the field of studies on new religions. Each conference normally features 50 to 150 papers. Conferences have been held inter alia at the London School of Economics (1993, 2001 and 2008), the Federal University of Pernambuco in Recife, Brazil (1994), the State University of Rome (1995), the University of Montreal (1996), the Free University of Amsterdam (1997), the Industrial Union in Turin (1998), the Bryn Athyn College in Pennsylvania (1999), the University of Latvia in Riga (2000), the University of Utah and Brigham Young University (2002 and 2009), the University of Vilnius (2003), Baylor University of Waco, Texas (2004), San Diego (California) State University (2006), Université Michel de Montaigne of Bordeaux (2007), University of Torino (2010), Aletheia University of Taipei (2011). Attendees include not only scholars, educators, and graduate students, but also lawyers, judges, law enforcement officials, pastors, mental health professionals, and specialized journalists.

Periodically, special seminars are organized on single topics by CESNUR's international network.

Finally every year several seminars or lectures are organized in Italy and elsewhere (including, increasingly, in Eastern Europe) in order to introduce the basic concepts of a scholarly approach to new religious movements to local scholars, priests an pastors, students, government officers, professionals, and the general public. In Italy CESNUR co-operates regularly with law enforcement agencies, supplying information and offering the services of the International Center. Although CESNUR is primarily a scholarly organization, it has never refused to co-operate with ex-members or families of current members of religious movements, offering help or directing them to specialized professionals.

Publications

CESNUR sponsors a wide range of publications, from the very scholarly to those intended for the general public. A collection of hundred-pages booklets on movements and religious trends published with a leading Catholic publisher is being extremely successful in Italy and publication in Spanish has started. English and French translations have also been published. These monographs are regarded as the standard references on a number of groups, particularly (although not exclusively) in the Catholic world, where knowledge of the Italian language is widespread. CESNUR also produced a three-videos course on new religious movements intended for Catholic schools and parishes in Italy. Its main project in Italian has been the monumental Encyclopedia of Religions in Italy (2001), which was the most reviewed non-fiction work in the Italian media in 2001, updated as "Religions in Italy" in 2006, and continuously updated in its Web version.

CESNUR, Religion, and Public Polity

CESNUR has conducted, in co-operation with public bodies, large surveys on religious belief and affiliation in Italy, in Sicily and elsewhere. The results have been published in several books. CESNUR is proud to enjoy a fruitful co-operation with a number of law enforcement agencies and public bodies. It has been able to assist members of parliaments, political parties, and law enforcement agencies by formulating suggestions on how to handle problems related to religion and religious minorities.

CESNUR does not believe that all religious movements are benign. The fact that a movement is religious does not mean that it could not become dangerous. To the contrary, our experience shows that dangerous or even criminal religious movements do exist. CESNUR invites scholars not to ignore questions of doctrine, authenticity, and legitimacy of spiritual paths. Although questions of authenticity could not be addressed by courts of law in a secular State, the latter could and should intervene when real crimes are perpetrated. Consumers of spiritual goods should not enjoy less protection than consumers in other fields. And when suicide, homicide, child abuse or rape are condoned or promoted, we urge a strong application of criminal laws. On the other hand "cults" in general should not suffer for the crimes of a minority of them. We are against special legislation against "cults", or against "brainwashing", "mind control" or "mental manipulation" (by any name). Any minority happening to be unpopular could be easily accused to own the invisible and non-existing weapon of "brainwashing", and special legislation would reduce religious liberty to an empty shell. Protection of religious liberty also requires that each group be examined on its own merits, comparing different sources and not relying exclusively on information provided by hostile ex-members. Experiences of disgruntled ex-members should certainly not be ignored, but they could not become the only narratives used to build our knowledge of a group.

CESNUR's International Network

Besides CESNUR International in Torino, Italy, and other Italian initiatives, we are active in the U.S. through several associates and computer cross-links allow an effective co-operation and the possibility for each CESNUR to provide state-of-the-art information supplied by leading scholars of the field, particularly when a crisis hits.

The 2010 International Conference “Changing Gods. Between Religion and Everyday Life” -

International Conference organized by CESNUR, Italian Association of Sociology (AIS) - Sociology of Religions Section, and the School of Political Science - University of Torino, Torino, Italy, 9-11 September 2010 at the Università di Torino - Facoltà di Scienze Politiche - Via G. Plana 10

http://www.sosabusipsicologici.it/wp-content/uploads/cesnur_session2010.doc
CESNUR papers on a variety of issues related to New Religious Movements [NRMs] and the New Age Movement [NAM] are reproduced in my various articles and reports.
INFORMATION ADDED ON AFTER JULY 2011:
Globalization: A Key Factor in Contemporary Religious Change

http://www.asanas.org.uk/files/005Frisk.pdf

By Liselotte Frisk [e-mail]

Religious change is often closely related to structural and social change. In this paper, I will look at changes in contemporary religion in relation to the globalization process. Globally, one aspect of recent religious change is that fundamentalist religious movements are thriving, aiming at reviving tradition and making religion influential in contemporary society. While these movements can be conceived of as responses to globalization in the particularistic mode, in this paper I will explore the more vague religious expressions in Western culture, related to New Age and the spirituality discourse, as responses to globalization in the universalistic mode. I will analytically discuss six interlinked processes of contemporary religious change and their relation to globalization.

I will also discuss the concepts of New Age and spirituality, and argue that essentializing a New Age category no longer makes sense in a globalized society. Instead, I attempt a focus on the dichotomy of institutionalized religion on one hand, and uninstitutionalized or popular religion on the other hand.
The New Age concept and the spirituality discourse: different voices

The New Age subculture has been called "a major phenomenon in popular religion, with a considerable cultural and religious significance" (Hanegraaff 1996:1). However, in spite of much research and discussion, its nature and contents have remained vague. New Age has been categorized as "religion" (Hanegraaff 2005), "a religion" (Hammer 1997), "a movement" (Heelas 1996) or several movements (York 2005). Some scholars have likened New Age to a "smorgasbord" where everyone is free to compose his or her own plate (Frisk 1997). But what is presented on the "smorgasbord" in the first place – what is New Age and what is not – has remained problematic. Several authors claim, however, that there is a certain coherence of beliefs and structure, which legitimate the use of an essentializing label for these currents (Hammer 1996; Hanegraaff 1996:514). Others focus on one essential trait: e.g. healing (Frisk 1997; York 2005:29), self spirituality (Heelas 1996) or the literal significance of the concept of New Age, that a new age will be coming (Melton 1988:35-36). Still others question if New Age at all is a real and identifiable phenomenon, or just an artificial construction created by scholars or media (York 2005:17).

One of the most radical critics of the concept New Age, who also discusses concepts as "popular religion", "spirituality" and "alternative spirituality", is Steven Sutcliffe, who in his book from 2003 claims that the formulation of a New Age movement just essentializes a set of mixed and divergent social processes, and that New Age as a movement is a constructed etic category (Sutcliffe 2003: 5-6). Sutcliffe suggests to remove New Age from the field of "movement studies" and to re-conceive it as a harbinger of a shift in contemporary religion to small group practice and a discourse of spirituality (Sutcliffe 2003: 5-6). Sutcliffe sees New Age as a codeword for the heterogeneity of alternative1 spirituality, best classified as a subtype of popular religion. Some typical concerns of religion in a popular mode are, according to

Sutcliffe, grass roots activism, strategies for everyday living, ideals of spiritual autonomy and egalitarianism, and an ideology of direct, unmediated access to experiences (Sutcliffe 2003: 9). Sutcliffe argues that a popular, functional everyday spirituality increasingly displaces New Age, and is a product of its genealogy.

"Spirituality" has, according to Sutcliffe, emerged as a hybrid discourse constructed from alternative and popular sources, and is associated with living experience and inner discourse, in contrast to religion which is associated with systems and dogma. Sutcliffe speaks about the emergent spiritual discourse as being dissident, striving at finding something other, more and better than institutionalized religion; being lay, having a domestic setting which undermines traditional boundaries between public and private space; being populist, recognizing the supremacy of the will of the people, and being functional, emphasizing short achievements of goals and the active creation of meaning in everyday life (Sutcliffe 2003:214-223).

The recent spirituality discourse has also been discussed by several other interpreters of contemporary popular religion. Paul Heelas, for example, claims that a spiritual revolution is gradually taking place, as religion gives way to spirituality (Heelas 2002:365). By "religion" Heelas means "obedience to a transcendent God and a tradition that mediates his authority", while he defines "spirituality" as "experience of the divine as immanent in life". Whilst the former is under threat, the latter is, according to Heelas, thriving, and is doing well both amongst those who are not involved with institutionalized religion, and within the field of traditional religion itself (Heelas 2002: 358). Heelas views New Age as a symptom of a wider, spiritual revolution, widespread in mainstream culture. New Age is, according to Heelas, just the most visible tip of an iceberg (Heelas 2002:361).

Linda Woodhead is arguing much along the same lines, claiming that a "turn to life" is one of the most significant trends in religion and spirituality, as well as in the wider culture, in the West since the Second World War. Woodhead characterizes the "turn to life" as having two poles: one personal, living out one’s own life in all its fullness, "selfing", to do things "in my own way" – and one cosmic pole, turning to the life force, of which the small self is ultimately only an aspect. The turn to life also places more emphasis on nature and/or on human relationship. It is this-worldly and "holistic", and there is also an emphasis on a radical egalitarianism, a radical empowerment of each individual (2001: 111-113). Woodhead emphasizes, as Paul Heelas, that this "turn to life" is effective not only in alternative, post-Christian and counter-cultural movements, but it is also becoming widely influential in post-war Christianity in the West, especially in it’s more liberal wing, and in feminist theology as well. Punishment, hell, damnation, and demonology have almost dropped out of the picture, as has a strong stress on asceticism and self-mortification. Experience, egalitarianism, and this-worldly development continue to eclipse older emphases on sacrifice and denial in this life in preparation for a more real life to come (2001:113-117). Woodhead discusses the "turn to life" as "the flight from deference", meaning a flight from submission to a higher authority, as well as a flight from deferral of personal gratification. The flight from deference is, according to Woodhead, not confined to the religious sphere: The World Values survey of 1990 indicates a decline in deference to many institutions which would formerly have commanded respect. A loss of confidence in governmental, party-political and religious institutions is evident (Woodhead 2001: 117-121).2

In their most recent book, Heelas and Woodhead are taking this theory one step further, discussing an on-going major cultural shift, meaning a turn away from "life lived in terms of external or 'objective' roles, duties and obligations, and a turn towards life lived by reference to one’s own subjective experiences" (Heelas & Woodhead 2005:2). They find some support for this thesis, at least as tendencies (Heelas & Woodhead 2005).

Several other authors also discuss the spirituality discourse along much the same lines as Heelas and Woodhead. "Spirituality" is presented as being a more personal and individual concept than "religion" (King 2001: 5-9, Roof et al. 1995: 247-252, Barker 2004a; Hanegraaff 2005), more anthropological than theological (King 2001: 5-9, Barker 2004a), syncretistic and pluralistic (Roof et al. 1995: 247-252, Barker 2004a), anti-hierarchical (Roof et al. 1995: 247-252, Barker 2004a) and innerworldly (Barker 2004a).

Globalization and contemporary religious change

Although there are reasons to be critical of some of the above representations3 – "a major cultural shift" may for example be far too strong an expression – there are, however, several indications that there are tendencies towards a change of focus in aspects of contemporary religion. In the words of Eileen Barker: "something important is going on, which students of religion ought to recognize" (Barker 2004a).

As to the changes, each author describes them a little differently, but there are a few characteristics that several of them bring up. In this paper, I will focus on six of these characteristics: Eclecticism and syncretism; emphasis on personal experience at the expense of ideology or dogma; uninstitutionalism or religiosity in the private mode; radical egalitarianism or recognizing each person as his/her own spiritual authority; self-spirituality or a shift from God to human being; and emphasis on thisworldliness rather than emphasizing life after death. Below I will, based on field observations and the above discussed authors, discuss these characteristics as six interlinked processes of change in the light of globalization theories, as I believe this is one of the most important explanations for these changes. Globalization is of course only one of the processes triggering this shift, but I think that as a major cause it has been quite neglected in the discussion so far.

Together with some of the above discussed authors, I reject the concept of New Age as an essentialized category, and focus instead on the whole field of non-official or popular religiosity4 in contrast to the institutionalized5 religions. The different elements of popular religion are today, as a consequence of globalization, increasingly interrelated and mixed. It is questionable if it makes sense any more to distinguish or essentialize special categories like New Age. There certainly are some characteristics which historically belonged to the cultic milieu of New Age, but these characteristics are today so well spread and mixed with other elements in popular religion, that I would argue that, while it might have made sense in the 1970s and even in the 1990s to speak about "new religiosity" or even "New Age", it does not make sense today.

Communication in the globalized world is increasingly dense, and because of the syncretism and ecumenism in uninstitutionalized popular religiosity in the post-Christian western culture, all elements are today mixed to a degree that it

makes no sense to speak about "new religiosity"6 as a separate category. At the most, one could speak of different tendencies in popular, uninstitutionalized religiosity. Moreover, this syncretistic tendency is slowly making it more and more useless also to speak about different religions as essentialized categories, even if this process is much slower. The religious change discussed above relates to both institutionalized and uninstitutionalized religion, but more to the latter category, as there is an inherent resistance to change in institutionalized religion. I will discuss these processes further below.