In Search of New Age Spiritualities

Adam Possamai

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351928212
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

The search for an adequate understanding of the New Age phenomenon is fraught with difficulties when examined within the perspectives of sociology of religion which have shed light on religion in modernity. New Agers cannot be located easily in the secularisation narrative; they move through fluid networks rather than settled collectivities; they assemble personal syncretisms of belief, myth and practice rather than subscribe to codified doctrines and prescribed rituals. New Age is quickly found to be a label that is unacceptable to many of those designated as New Agers. This book advances our understanding of the so-called New Age phenomenon by analysing accounts of insiders' religious experience and orientations. This approach is brought to bear not only on the study of written documents relating to New Age and its putative antecedents, but on the analysis of in-depth interviews with thirty-five spiritual actors.

Chapter 1

A Profile of the Respondents: Social and Spiritual Aspects

The social profile of what is commonly known as western New Agers is urban educated middle-class and middle-aged, with a majority of women (Champion 1993; Rose 1998). However, this portrait is based on quantitative analyses, and as Rose (1998: 20) claims: ‘we will become better informed [about the spiritual actors] once more qualitative evidence is gathered’. The aim of this chapter is thus to provide a qualitative and richer analysis of the 35 respondents interviewed.

At the beginning of each interview, I asked the participant how they followed their particular spiritual path (or spiritual journey). Other questions were:

• What are the resources you have employed or employ to follow this path? What groups are you going to? What are you studying? What books are you reading? What techniques or meditations are you using? (If there have been some changes of methods in the life trajectory: Why?)

• Why did you choose these resources and not others? Why do you think that these could help you better than other techniques?

• Where do you think this path will lead you?

• If you were to advise someone who wants to set out on a spiritual path, what would you say?

While analysing the interviews, I wanted to answer the following questions:

• Who are these spiritual actors (from a sociological point of view)? What are their defining features?

• How do people become spiritual actors of the alternative type? How do people strategise in or towards this religious field?

• How do they organise themselves? What are the details of their organisation – if they have any – and how does it operate?

These questions are inspired by Lofland’s (1995, 37) list of generic propositions used in ethnographic researches. The interviews were thematically analysed to give an answer to these questions. Other analyses of these interviews on anti-modern, modern, and post-modern values can be found in Chapter 8.

This chapter will address the first two questions. The next chapter will focus on the third one and will deal exclusively on the way these actors organise themselves.

Who are these Spiritual Actors?: The Conflictual Actor

Four cases of alternative spiritual actors follow. The immense social psychological differences are obvious and challenge any simple composite portrait. Anne, William, Sue and Sarah have been chosen as case studies because of their pertinent explanations of the conflict they experienced with any sort of religious organisation. They also come from different backgrounds (Anne was atheist, William Catholic, Sue got involved in a born-again Christian movement and Sarah was born in a family already involved in alternative spiritualities) and offer a good contrast for this research.

Anne was a confirmed atheist until her mother gave her a ‘New Age’ book written by Ruth Montgomery. This book made sense to her and she began to experience the different aspects of the religious and spiritual field. ‘I started to be very interested in spirituality and I went to some churches and things.’ One day, she met a reborn Christian and followed him to his church, ‘he was a very devout fundamental Christian’. Conflicts appeared quickly. She did not fit in with the dogmatism of the church:

I had a chat with the man who was taking the Bible study group, who was a priest, I explained to him my interest in psychic phenomena and I said: ‘Does Christianity have a belief that this is evil to be interested in it?’ He said: ‘well’, he didn’t want to say yes, but it was more or less yes. […] I just thought, you know, I had this big debate with him and I said to him: ‘Okay, if it is evil, do I have to be evil to want to study it?’ There’s nothing wrong with wanting to study evil. It’s like how lawyers need to study crime or else how are you going to have justice, you know. And they were sort of, oh, not very comfortable with that you know. So I went on my merry way.

She finally separated from her Christian friend who had become her partner, and decided to follow different ‘New Age’ workshops. She tried many different practices, including regression, to discover who she was in her previous life:

I’ve tried to be regressed. Which didn’t work on me. But then they say it can take, you know, many sessions before you sort of, and you need to feel comfortable with the person and whatever, which I never did. And at something like [AU] $120 a session you don’t want to go to too many sessions before you know that something’s happening.

She also went to a Buddhist monastery and was ready to become a Buddhist monk. She left this place because she perceived that the monks were not completely ascetic, or authentic at times; they were known to watch the Star Trek series on television. She admits that she was attracted by the ‘glamorous part’ (i.e. the part which offers ‘mystical knowledge’) of ‘New Age’; she hoped to become enlightened. Although she never had any mystical experience, she still hopes that one day the light might come to her. However, if this was strong in her narration when she first started her quest, she does not consider this aspect as important as before. After having experienced many different practices, she now believes she has found what she thinks suits her better (for the moment); that is automatic writing as a form of meditation.

William was an orthodox Christian:

I was quite a strict Catholic […] for some years in round about 18 to 23. But abandoned that and I no longer go to church any more.

Even if he refuses the teaching of the church, there is a part of himself that still wants to stay with it:

It’s still in a way part of yourself that you haven’t quite, I haven’t quite, shaken off. I don’t think I ever will quite shake off.

He decided one day to leave the church because he could not solve his inner conflict. His homosexuality could not fit with the Catholic moral dogma:

I went through a very emotionally difficult time around 21, 22, until finally I thought one of these has got to have to go. And I couldn’t picture it ever changing, my sexuality. And much of the response I was getting from the church I was involved in was either you’ll grow out of it or you can be healed of it or it’s just wrong and you have to not do it. Eventually I thought well I don’t think I’m ever going to grow out of it. […] That was the beginning of the end. And as I began to question that I began to question a lot of other things too about that. I still believe in God but I don’t know what God is any more.

During this time he decided to explore his life outside the church. After a few years he decided to come back to a spiritual life; he found it hard not to live a religious quest. He started something for which he had been longing for a long time, astrology:

But lately I’m feeling a sort of need for something in some sort of way. That’s probably in part why I’ve started studying astrology, to try and find a meaning, of something, or to the world, because I mean, as I say I still believe in God, whatever it is and believe in there’s a meaning to life and there’s an afterlife and so forth. But it’s not terribly structured. The beliefs are very hazy and eclectic. So it’s trying to ground that a little.

He still considers himself a Christian and believes in reincarnation.

Sue was born into a background that was religious but not strictly so:

I was about 19 when I really felt serious about finding some kind of other meaning to life. I’d had a fairly traditional but not a strict religious upbringing, but church was a fairly meaningless process and I thought there’s got to be more to it than this.

When she arrived at Melbourne University, she explored Indian religions and yogic philosophy, but she also got involved in a born-again Christian movement:

I’d go to their meetings and argue quite furiously with them about things and eventually it was kind of can’t beat them join them. So I had a go at that for a while, which I found fairly repressive actually. It was a period where I felt like a lot of my own thoughts and feelings had to be suppressed because they didn’t align with the dogma that was being preached. And whilst they were all very friendly and they had, I think what attracted me was the sense of security in the group and that they seemed to be really certain of what they believed, and I was certainly far from feeling certain about anything.

She stayed in this group for around 7 years. She was heavily involved with it for the first 4 years, but later started to distance herself from this movement. Conflicts started to appear between her and other members of the movement, even if she wanted to stay during her three years of doubt:

I suppose what ended up being a crisis was meeting somebody who I fell in love with and who was totally anti-religion. So that ended up being a 3 year sort of struggle within me and the outcome of that was to do a lot of soul searching, abandoning it altogether and just thinking well if I’m wrong I’m wrong, but at least I’m being honest. And you know all these threats of hell they throw at you. Which it really is like that to some extent. You know if you abandon the path then there are all these consequences supposedly. But as I’ve said, I mean I found my personal integrity was more important. So no regrets.

Out of the movement, she decided to study astrology (‘I’ve had a lifelong interest in astrology. You know since I was about 14 I’ve always read books about it and been vaguely interested’) and tarot cards and she now teaches in these areas.

Sarah’s mother was a fortune teller and her auntie was a professional witch. As a child she could see ‘ghosts and fairies’, yet also, she saw the tricks her mother performed behind the back of her customers:

I had every kind of crackpot come through the house for fortune telling because she’s [her mother] very much an airy person with no common sense or business sense. So anybody was allowed in the door at any time. […] So it was a kind of household if you said I saw a ghost, oh yes yes. Oh yes we’ve seen that one or you know I’ve just been talking to the fairies down the back yard, oh what were their names. And I guess I saw a lot of things when I was little.

She eventually decided to leave alternative spiritualities:

I kind of grew up because of that being a total sceptic. I’d seen every trick in the book. I’d seen what my aunty does and what my mother does while they may think they’re genuine, you know it’s a lot of body language, reading’s a lot of feeding questions and I can read people fairly quickly, so my thing is the line between psychic ability and just being able to psychologically analyse someone.

She even became anti-religious but she continued to keep an eye on alternative spiritualities:

I was kind of fighting against it but at the same time I loved reading things about paranormal and I always found myself, you know I would ask Mum to do readings for me and she always knew stuff that she shouldn’t know. Secrets.

Despite her mother’s tricks, she found that her readings were 70 per cent accurate and started to dissociate ‘spirituality with kitchen magic’. Four years ago, she met a friend who re-introduced her to magic:

she was very down to earth and very natural. I guess that appealed to me and I got to like the idea of, I don’t know, it’s hard to express. Opening myself up, back up to spirituality again in a comfortable way. Where it wasn’t about tricking people or it wasn’t about power.

And ever since, she has decided to study alternative spiritualities in an intellectual manner, rather than the ‘kitchen magic’ of her mother and aunty.

As typified by these case studies, New Agers from my sample might have been born in a religious environment or been atheistic, but none of them follow the steps of their primary agents of socialisation. They can be an atheist, and suddenly meet someone, read a book or have a mystical conversion to become interested in alternative spiritualities. They may have also been socialised into a strong religious background, but they always conflict with the ecclesiastical authority. They may even have been educated in an alternative spiritual environment, but they still rebel against their (religious) upbringing. In my sample, I have not found a common religious background that could be said to have influenced their decision to follow ‘New Age’ ideas, apart from a common factor of conflict towards their socialisation – be it religious or otherwise.

On their spiritual paths, after having rejected their spiritual establishment, my informants have visited diverse ‘New Age’ and non-‘New Age’ groups and often continue to experience tension and conflict within those groups (e.g. born again Christians, Transcendental Meditation, Scientology), because they want to find their own subjective religion. Their discourse on religious establishment is often cynical and derides the perceived dogmatism. Cynicism in this context is possibly a ‘detachment mechanism’, a way of achieving a ‘role distance’. It is often used by those who have become disillusioned with their work or religion (Ballis 1995, 140). However, I find the word ‘cynicism’ not precise enough to describe my interviewees. Many of my informants used humour to describe their rebellious act against their background - be it religious or otherwise. The cases presented above show, to a certain extent, a kind of satire used to describe their conflict: a kind of satire that I felt while conducting the interviews and which is not, unfortunately, as strongly reflected in their transcription.

In their satire, my informants can be regarded as cutting themselves off from their past upbringing and justifying their religious mobility. However, one may wonder what happens after this detachment. Do spiritual actors of the alternative type go to another group or do they refuse to be involved in any group ever again? Julian’s interview extract below emphasises a strong independent quality in my informants:

This is a thing I wrote just after I met my girlfriend. […] We met at a party in February and then at another party in May. At the party in May we talked about a lot of things. Philosophy, magic, spiritual path. Because I was looking for a magical teacher at the time and she was saying no you don’t need a teacher, you have everything you need. So I wrote this afterwards. This is basically written a few days after, in early May. It’s titled ‘the search for spiritual truth’ by me. […]

Be a student but not to any self proclaimed guru.

Have teachers but not one teacher.

Partake of group activities but be not bound to only one group for this may limit your growth.

At the same time do not wantonly hasten down every spiritual path that is presented to you.

Rather use discernment.

Have the confidence to trust your intuition for your intuition is your higher genius.

It is the guidance of your guardian angel.

The conflicts these respondents have experienced and their satirical approach make them perfect individualists of religion. By this, I refer to the notion of individuation of decisions presented by Dobbelaere and Voyé (1990, S4-S6) in which people no longer accept a religious ‘set menu’ offered by ‘traditional religions’ (and even by New Religious Movements for my informants) but are more interested in a ‘religion à la carte’. Describing these independent religious individualists, Dobbelaere and Voyé argue that ‘the adage, “I think and I choose my beliefs and practices to express my religious feelings” – [has] a tremendous appeal for them, and especially for intellectuals’. This idea of individuation conforms with what Roof (1993, 167) calls ‘new voluntarism’ and what Hanegraaf (1999) refers to an eclectic private symbolism. In this symbolism, new religious and spiritual syntheses are continually created via an individual manipulation of existing symbolic systems. It also describes individual autonomy in religious matters, and implies a greater voluntarism within a religious life. These new voluntarists free themselves from ascriptive bonds and thus, pres...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Preface
• INTRODUCTION
• 1. A PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS: SOCIAL AND SPIRITUAL ASPECTS
• 2. A PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS: NETWORKING ASPECTS
• 3. KEEPING NEW AGE AT BAY
• 4. PERENNISM
• 5. THE SPIRITUAL KNOWLEDGES
• 6. A SOCIOLOGICAL CHART OF THE AGE OF AQUARIUS
• 7. NEO-PAGANISM AND PRESENTIST PERENNISM
• 8. THREE PERENNIST SPIRITUALITIES
• 9. PERENNIST RE-ENCHANTMENT: THE CULTURAL LOGIC OF LATE CAPITALISM AND COMMUNICATIVE ACTION
• CONCLUSION
• Bibliography
• Index