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The New Age movement (some prefer the term “New Spirituality”) is usually said to have started in the 1960s and 70s in the United States and other Western nations. One website I found said there are around 3.5 million New Agers today, but it’s difficult to know for sure. In the early 90s it was estimated by some to be around 10-12 million. It’s believed that 2/3 of all New Agers are female and I read (more than once) that in the USA, politically, New Agers are virtually 100% Democrat (for some reason that kept coming up).
The New Age movement is often described as a reaction against both secular humanism and Christianity. They want spirituality and spiritual experiences (contrary to secular humanism), but they don’t want to come under the authority of organized religion (like Christianity).
There are a variety of beliefs and rituals and subdivisions in the New Age movement and so it’s often a difficult religion to delineate and define. There are quite a few popular New Age books, but there is no authoritative book or doctrine. That said, there are some beliefs that are pretty much common to all of them.
They believe in pantheism (everything is god and we are all a part of god). They usually believe in reincarnation (our spirits return in a new body after we die). They believe in self-actualization (my truth, my reality, my morals, and my power are found within and not without). And they believe in a coming new age of enlightenment and harmony (which, I believe, is why they are called the New Age movement).
On top of those things, they usually like crystals and incense and tarot cards and runes and psychic readings and yoga and transcendental meditation and astrology and numerology and alternative medicine and spirit guides and psychedelic drugs. And they will usually pick and choose from those things.
Anonymous
It sounds too weird...CHOOSE JESUS!!
Anonymous
Just another attempt at woo. Trying to gather the peace-love aspect, blend it with herbs and spices, produce something vaguely nice and inclusive. Hateful fearful religious anything appeals to far more people than new age anything.
Annsan_In_Him
That rules out stating Google's definition, then! Decades ago I read 2 of Shirley MacLaine's books about her discovery of the New Age enthusiasm that arose in the 1970s. Basically, trying to define the New Age is like trying to nail jelly to a wall! But in many respects there are some similarities, or compromises with Hinduism, so I'll deal with that. The New Age takes from the world of yoga, reincarnation, crystal power, Hindu mantras, and past-life recall experiences. Spirit guides inform adherents that each individual is God, and they try to pass along the “wisdom” trail that teaches the person to be unlimited. One only has to realize it.
New Age thinking has its roots, then, in Eastern mysticism, which attempts to bypass the mind. There is a new organ of perception—the third eye—which gives spiritual light. One needs to get to the “psychic self” by training one’s self to ignore messages from the mind or to see that the mind is actually achieving “cosmic consciousness.” The mind can create reality. That is very similar to Hindu belief. Try the link below for much more on this.
From the 1960s several Hindu gurus actively recruited western disciples to selective ideas of Hindu spirituality, as opposed to Hinduism as a whole. The best known movement is Hare Krishna and there is also Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh and Transcendental Meditation. In 1965 the Hare Krishna movement took off in New York. Another group is the Shri Sathya Sai Baba Fellowship. This has syncretistic eclectic teaching, incorporating elements from different religions but possessing strong Shaivite learning. All of this has infiltrated into the so-called Hippie movement. http://www.gotquestions.org/new-age-movement.html
Oleg
A mish-mash of various religions, where all these gurus/teachers read various religious/spiritual book and combine different concepts from different religions together, but it actually comes out as a self-contradicting mess.
It can be dangerous, as in the past i read these teachings - for example one teacher claimed that he saved the universe from destruction, telling people to buy his courses and make private meetings with him, for money, and since it teaches self-contradicting things - it can lead you to insanity. In reality he was just copying some bits of out of Christianity, Hinduism, Buddhism, theosophy, occult, spiritual books and mixing them all together, to promote himself and his books, but brought nothing new except his self-promotion.
Another would promote self-affirmations, that supposedly if you repeat some words that everything is good in your life, in your self-perception, you are making a sort of order to the universe, which will grant it, even supposedly curing AIDS, but some people accused her of lies, as many with AIDS died, even if resorting to her courses.
So this stuff is dangerous, often leading to personality cults and creation of various extremist sects, or at least promotion of false worthless teachings, which don't actually work in practice.