Another Awakening

introduction

One explanation sees the New Age movement as another of the periodical awakenings — Christian revivals that last for decades and in which masses of people experience intense religious fervor. The American writer Tom Wolfe first popularized this explanation in a 1976 article entitled “The Me decade;” a scholar of American religion, William McLoughlin, gave the same interpretation a more scholarly form a few years later. Both theses suffer from the same major problem, so only Wolfe’s work will be examined.

The First Great Awakening occurred in England and America in the 1730s–1740s. Led by George Whitfield and Jonathan Edwards, it filled many people with Christian religious fervor. The Second Great Awakening occurred in America from 1800 to 1845 and won the western frontier for Christianity. In Wolfe’s view, America periodically has these Christian awakenings and the New Age is another, albeit non-Christian, awakening. Wolfe linked the New Age with these Awakenings because participants in both events had many ecstatic experiences. McLoughlin stated that these revivals happen periodically, especially in times of stress in the dominant cultural paradigm. According to McLoughlin, these revivals help bring about a new cultural paradigm that allows the culture to adapt to changes in the world.

a very Christian concept to a very non-Christian concept

The first problem with this explanation is that it takes a very Christian concept, an awakening, and applies it to the very non-Christian context of the New Age movement. The only similarity between an awakening and some New Age events is that they both involved Americans and they both involved ecstatic experiences. The First Great Awakening in the 1730s–1740s had no New Age counterpart. The Second Awakening, which was over by approximately 1845, did not have a New Age counterpart because Theosophy and New Thought did not begin in America until the 1870s and Spiritualism did not begin until 1848. So there is no good reason to link awakenings in general with non-Christian New Age-like movements. Furthermore, the very title of Wolfe’s article — “The Me Decade” — reveals an extremely important difference between an awakening and the part of the New Age movement that Wolfe is chronicling. People left the awakenings thinking, not of themselves, but of the grace of God and the Holy Spirit; on the other hand, according to Wolfe himself, people came out of New Age events thinking about themselves.
Most important, however, the New Age movement is not just, or even primarily, an American phenomenon; it extends all over the modern world. For example, twelve percent of the books sold in Germany are about the New Age. The New Age movement is so pervasive in Germany that the popular German magazine Der Spiegel reports on the German New Age at least as much as Time or Newsweek reports on the American New Age. For example, a Der Spiegel article reported that thirteen hundred people, mostly salesmen and managers, went to a firewalking ritual in Brussels led by Tony Robbins. One important New Age book, Time is an Illusion, by American author Chris Griscom was published in German before being translated into English. Farther north, Scotland is the home of the Findhorn community. England has long had a flourishing natural health movement as well as many esoteric groups. And Tony Robbins was the first American since President Reagan to add ress the British Houses of Parliament which attests to the widespread support in England for New Age ideas.

Not confined to western Europe

The New Age movement in Europe was not confined only to Western Europe. Since the Iron Curtain fell, Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic and Russia have had tremendous interest in the New Age. Vaclav Havel, the President of the Czech Republic, declares our planet can only be saved by realizing the Earth is alive, a key idea in the New Age movement. New Age Journal writer Don Lattin went to Eastern Europe and was amazed at how pervasive New Age influence is in Eastern Europe; Lattin said the New Age is everywhere in these former Communist countries. “There’s an openness,” Lattin writes, “almost a giddiness, that keeps reminding me of the 1960s, the last time people in the United States talked about the dawning of a new age and really believed it.” Furthermore, the New Age is becoming more popular in the Soviet Union.

Not confined to Europe & America

Furthermore, Americans and Europeans are not the only ones involved with the New Age movement. James Redfield’s best seller, The Celestine Prophecy, has been translated into over twenty-five languages. Tony Robbins Unlimited Power has been translated into twelve languages. In Japan, hundreds of thousands of New Age books have been sold. Cayce, Steiner, Krishnamurti, Gurdjieff, and Rajneesh sell extremely well. Shirley MacLaine’s Out on a Limb is in its thirty-third printing in Japan after having sold over two hundred thousand copies. Four of her other books have also sold well, and a total of over five hundred thousand of her books have been sold in that country. The New Age movement is so popular in Japan that scholar Mark Mullins reported, “It is probably not uncommon for a New Age trend of religious movements to make it to the streets of Tokyo before ever penetrating communities in the southeastern United States.” David Hess, in his sociological study of the New Age, says Brazil has a tremendous mixing of Western and non-Western cultures which is “articulated in terms of Western science.” Indeed, Hess says Brazil has so much interest in the New age that there is “a Brazilian New Age which makes that of California seem bland in comparison.”

did not originate from indigenous American elements

Not only is the New Age movement not confined to America, it also did not originate from indigenous American elements and then spread to other countries. Many of its most important elements originated in Europe. For example, Britain gave an important impetus to the New Age when its esoteric meditation groups formed a planetary network, thus encouraging isolated groups to see themselves as part of a worldwide movement. Scotland inspired many early New Agers by nurturing them at the Findhorn community which Christian critics have called “the Vatican City of the New Age.” Switzerland was the birthplace of Jungian psychotherapy which emphasizes myth and archetypes. Italy was the birthplace of Psychosynthesis which emphasizes active imagination, guided visualizations, and the Higher Self. Germany was the homeland of homeopathy and Steiner’s Anthroposophy. Russia nurtured Gurdjieff. David Toolan says of Esalen that its “growth therapies, its psychodrama, gestalt therapy, and even its body work had origins in radical European political philosophy.” Needless to say, Asia also contributed many essential elements of the movement.

Conclusion

The New Age is not confined to America, did not originate from American elements, and finally, the movement did not come together in America and then spread to the rest of the world. Actually, a good case can be made that the various elements of the New Age movement first came together in the late sixties at the Findhorn community in northern Scotland. With their nature spirits, synchronicities, group consciousness, and a dawning new age, the Findhorn community inspired so many early New Agers that Christian critics have often called it “the Vatican City of the New Age.” For all these reasons, the New Age cannot be considered an American phenomenon.

Even if one mistakenly thinks the New Age movement started in America and spread from there, this does not prove it is an American phenomenon. A good case can be made that the Enlightenment primarily started in England and spread out from there, and no one thinks the Enlightenment is an English phenomenon. The Enlightenment started first in England only because at that time England was at the forefront of the modern world. The development of the New Age is similar: it first gained wide popular acceptance in America because America is at the leading edge of modern cultural change, not because the movement is an American phenomenon. The New Age is a cultural movement connected with problems inherent in modern culture and for this reason it affects the whole modern world. Instead of seeing the New Age as an American or Californian phenomenon, we should see it as a cultural movement that affects the whole modern world. Therefore, any explanation of the New Age which understands it purely in American terms is inadequate and tremendously understates the movement’s scope and significance.

Copyrighted 2009

footnotes

Note: The footnotes to this essay are being fixed.