Talk:New Age (archive 3)

I'd like to make a list of New Age genres in the beginning, and to cross reference the genres as well. Next, explain how there is a New meaning to the old ideas referenced, with liberal interpretations. All are welcome to edit, but for the sake of interaction could we please just add on to what is already here before you remove anything ? The interaction of those who help with this topic will not devolve into some spirituality discussion group, it should actually reflect the opening statements in practice as this event moves forward. BF This is never read or understood since day one of this article.

No. What has never been understood is that you are in no position to make such demands. Everyone is free to edit every article, anyhow, always. -- GWO

New Age is not finished yet and the present format seems to be acceptable to all who have contributed to the article. The talk section is cleared now since everything has been resolved and vanilla NPOV established. Does anyone want to argue with this statement ? ~BF

Argue, no. But I'd like to say that if and when we do create an entry on this subject with "vanilla"/NPOV, I'd call this a major triumph of the Wikipedia ethos. Personally I didn't think it would ever be possible to accomplish this. Thanks to all. :-)

In general, with the evolution of this section - I would like to see the new age articles progress along the lines of articles like evolutionary biology. The dispute between science and religion has been observed on the evolution page, hence it is not necessary to resume this dipute on every related page about biology - we already know we are operating inside a scientific paradigm. Likewise for New Age genres, the irreconcilability of New Age philosophy to scientific thought has been identified, and this dispute does not need to continue on every related page. A simple sentence "iridology is associated with the new-age movement" is enough to set its framework. - MB

We need to allow NAPOV<new age point of view> especially in this article. -BF

Absolutely not. We don't want the capitalist page to be full of capitalist rhetoric, the socialist page to be full of socialist rhetoric, the Christian page to be full of Christian rhetoric, the Jewish page to be full of Jewish rhetoric, the Buddhist page to be full of Buddhist rhetoric, the atheist page to be full of atheist rhetoric, the separatist pages to be full of separatist rhetoric, the country pages to be full of nationalist rhetoric, or even the science page to be full of scientific rhetoric. This page should not be an exception. NPOV is not about promoting the dominant point of view, it is about being fair, and I don't see why that should be some objectionable to you, but I can assure you that all biased material will be removed, so don't bother with it. It would be much better if you presented some real information about new age beliefs rather than attempting proselytize, and let it speak for itself.

While we can each only truly speak for ourselves, Josh is essentially right when he says what "we" try to do, though him telling you to present "real information about new age beliefs rather than attempting to proselytize" is mildly unhelpful. I know that you're trying to present what you consider real information about new age beliefs, and it just sounds like proselytizing to others. I personally try not to delete biased content, but to contextualize or essentialize it. I do delete redundancies. If someone wrote "War means killing people, and killing people is bad, and it's evil, because murder is evil, and killing people is murder, and War is murder. War is evil, unless it's justified, which some people believe. And some people belive that it's not." I'd certainly delete some of that, but I wouldn't delete the sentiment of the questionable morality of war.

Or for a better example, BF, what you wrote that JG deleted:

New Age offers us changes to formation of ideas, the overall archetype itself. When a person's cognitive mental system changes, extraordinary events may ensue. Long ago, before the existence of writing, perhaps a child asked, "Why don't we roll things instead of dragging them?" This was the germ idea of the wheel. It was a New Age idea at the time.

has at its base interesting commentary on, as you mentioned in your summary, "paradigms and cognition". Instead of deleting your entry, I would have (and will) strip down the tone ("extraordinary events may ensue","perhaps a child asked") but not the content:

New Age celebrates skepticism about the generally accepted reality, both social and physical, as well as the exploration of one's cognitive abilities.

--TheCunctator

Actually, I should apologize for presuming to speak for everybody. NPOV has been general concensus for a long time, but otherwise I speak for myself, and anyone is welcome to agree or disagree with me.

Hmm, almost by definition, I think all new religious movements have an element of revisionism ("Everything you know is wrong"). BF, who is apparently the main proponent of New Age on Wikipedia, as far as I can tell agrees that it's radically revisionist and counts this as one of its strengths.

I just re-read New Age and I see a good NPOV balance between lauding and knocking its beliefs.

You're basically correct in your overview of the page. Unfortunately, every time I attempt to balance the subtle negative slant in the supposed neutral write-up with a subtle positive, it is removed or changed into something not even the slightest bit related to the original. And, to make matters worse, I began this article, endured all the revisions by others, and have seen one excellent collaborator(Manning Bartlett) try to defend my right to express non-neutral points, within certain parameters. He also respected my vision for this page, and was strict in "teaching" me how to write articles here on Wiki. Now he himself decided to quit writing due to some other type of censorship from an admin. on wiki. I almost feel "lucky" to see anything I write on New Age left intact. I have a "sandbox" called /Workshop to play in that Cunctator created and there is no feedback as of this writing.~BF

BF, I'd like to say with all due respect (really) that most of the things you write sound crazy. I assume you know this already. When you claim to be so all-fired sure you know "the truth", surely you can't expect others to agree with your view of it unless you can present something more substantial to back it up. I think that's what we've basically been asking for here. Either give us some sort of reason to agree that you're right, or don't expect us to agree that you're right.

to unnamed, possibly vento.com.br- this is the reason: "Their reason makes them forget that the description is only a description, and before they realize it, human beings have entrapped the totality of themselves in a vicious circle from which they rarely emerge in their lifetimes." i read what you pasted in 3 places. thanks.

Ok, I'm inclined to agree with you to some extent. However, I don't think that your response is an answer to my question

(And I pasted that in three places because it was originally in one place but apparently you hadn't seen it when you asked for feedback above.)

BF -- I think a good summary of the "scientific point of view"(informally speaking) is: "We need to have some kind of technique for telling whether our ideas actually apply to the real world or not. The Scientific Method is the best known technique for doing this."

Reason is supposed to lead us toward greater truth rather than away from it. If it doesn't do this, it's because we're mis-using it rather than because there's anything inherently wrong with it.

You say that many people mistake a description for reality. I agree. I would also add that many people mistake their opinions for reality.

The Scientific Method is supposed to be the best known method for sorting out "opinions/descriptions/theories" that apply well to reality from those that don't.

If person A says that drinking a bottle of cyanide will cure the common cold (with no harmful side effects) and person B says it will enable us to fly like Superman (ditto harmful side effects), and person C says it will kill us dead, dead, dead, we'd like to have some sort of way of telling what the truth is.

At least in this particular case we can be gratified by the Darwinian assurance that those who choose irrationally won't be around to bother us much longer...LDC

We ask each person, "Why do you claim that you know the Truth about this?" and each answers "Because I do, that's why."

Ideally we'd like something a little more reliable to go on.

(Adding more a little later here)

BF, I apologize if I've sounded rude to you.

You know very well that the "New Age"people and the "Anti-New-Age" people strongly disagree about these things. The things you write really do sound crazy to some of us. I'm trying to speak with you in a reasonable way here.

When you write things like "because I do, that's why" and about visualizing yourself as a bee, this makes it difficult for us to converse with you.

I'd like to try to talk with you about these things if we can. Blessed be!!

The Cunctator writes: *Removed "Some have attempted to claim" --you don't "attempt to claim".

No, I guess not. Mea culpa.

If we all read this page from top to bottom we will notice the main New Age page hasn't changed much since the major factoring, to quote Wikipedia, by Cunctator several days ago. I wrote something, and it was sent to the Abyss, if I may be blunt. Most people comment on what they disagree with, but I see no one writing any new content. I'm not the owner of New Age, admittedly, but don't any of you have any ideas on what to write on this topic ? If not, then it seems to be a cat and mouse game(cut, revise, and shrink). My goal is listed in the 1st paragraph. Would anyone besides C care to say if they think the main page is finished ? ~ BF

Nothing personal, but the page is not actually very well written. Between the opposing sides of the editorial battle, rhetoric seems to have been the loser. I did make a few minor edits that should (hopefully) provide a little more "matter-of-fact" tone. As far as content goes, it looks like a pretty good start for wikification of the subject matter.

I'm so flattered that it's almost wikified. Neutral like tasteless watered down soup if you ask me. We want information without bias, says Larry. I say let's put some passion and gut feelings into this pedia that will give the reader a real time presence in at least this experiential oriented article.~BF

BF, some of us were talking about this on another page a few days ago and it's probably not possible to say that a Wikipedia page is ever "finished". As long as nobody's doing anything with it it's "finished for the time being".

When somebody adds something or starts a new page, people will react to it.

I put some headings in boldface. Later will move present content under the header as applies, plus chant a magic spell and pray that any new content added will "pass the scrutiny of mutiny" ~BF

What I want to know is, why should I believe that any adherent of New Age beliefs believes any of this? There is very scant mention of actual New Age gurus, or religions, or whatever else might actual instantiate the sorts of generalizations made. New Age-ism is surely, like most any other "ism," a sort of intellectual movement, with a history and leading proponents--which means that the truth about what New Age-ism doesn't live out there in some Platonic nether realm waiting to be discovered. Absent attributions of beliefs to particular entities, how is anyone supposed to verify or falsify the claims made about "New Age" stuff in general? So, to make this article convincing, you're going to have to add a lot of references to actual people and actual religions, cults, organizations, and so forth. --LMS

Larry has a good point here, although I would not personally have used the word "cult"... it would be nice to get some meat on these bones.

Those references are in progress Larry. This page has lost so much content due to the revisions that I decided not to justify anything, until what was written remained for at least a day or two. The boldface headings are a start in this direction, with Music naming names. More to come if people can be patient. My hope is to eventually submit this article to nupedia some day. ~BF

Hello? I thought we'd all agreed that the previous version of the "intro" or general remarks was about what we wanted here, and somebody (BF?) changed it. Restored the older version, didn't do anything with the new subheadings.

Thanks to all who have let the article exist for several days intact. Destroy what you want, in the name of Wiki. Most of you have no idea what new age means and should learn by exploring the topic, as I have for at least 4 years( in this lifetime =) ~BF

If "New Age was primarily a movement amongst the younger generation in the late sixties" why are we mentioning Masons, Rosicrucians and Emerson? -rmhermen

I know it seems out of place. This part was a except from a greater story on the beginnings of New Age, and I did show the link to the source writing. I felt it was correct to leave the original "as is" without any ellipses.

Revised the introduction. I think it looks less verbose and less critical of New Age itself than the former buzz-words suggested. But I did leave those words in, minus the redundancy such as revisionist, etc. ~BF

Whoever thinks they are funny, you aren't ! Larry Sanger has been asking people not to remove content, just edit what is already in place. Get a clue, clueless !

My goodness, but we have a lot of nerve calling other people "clueless". On October 18, this article had a "header" or "introduction" that had been hashed out over a week or two, and which I believe was generally agreed to be accurate and NPOV (Revision 79, about a page or so long). In Revision 80, BF deleted about 90% of this ("removed content") and added subject headings. On October 20 (revision 85), I restored the content BF had deleted. (If I have this history wrong, I apologize. That's what it looks like to me.)

Wahh, I was wrong! (Ok, lacking in sufficient degree of clue :-)). I see that this material was incorporated into the subject headings of the article. I apologize. If this happens again, could you please mention it to me? Thanks.

In Revisions 102-105, approximately, I'm just adding links into the text. Haven't added or subtracted anything at this point. :-) (I did change the header or introduction before this. I think I've restored it to something acceptable now.)

I'll try to edit this at some point if I can, but know that I've found that the Be bold in updating pages philosophy works well, as long as you don't repeat yourself. In other words, I find hacking up each other's work, without simply deleting content or restoring old content, works well. Try not to think about "restoring" content, try not to think about "deleting" content. --TheCunctator

There is an excellent reason why we don't have external links liberally sprinkled through most of our articles: the information contained in the articles you link to is often to be found in (existent or future) Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia isn't a web portal; it's supposed to be a self-contained compendium of knowledge. So, I do think we should remove many or all of the external links you've added, BF. --LMS

OK Larry I didn't know this. I'll remove them and please be lenient when I end up paraphrasing the contextual links. I am trying to get this article on track with many cooks in the kitchen and me the only one working on the stew. ~BF

BF, just so you know, I think it's fine (in fact, good) to include external links, but to do it at the bottom of the article, not within it. --TheCunctator

Several of the links were decidedly not good. For example, you had an external link to A Course in Miracles, a topic on which a close family member of mine could write (ugh) an article.

It's a grand idea, as far as I'm concerned, to move those links to the bottom of the page, in an external links section. --LMS

I took out the old "new age and medicine" section and replaced it with something less propagandistic and hopefully more informative. The new section, however, needs work to better explain why people use new-age medicine instead of conventional medicine (as a sceptic towards new-age stuff it's hard to be sure what attracts people to it, but I've tried). The old section is below:

Larry Dossey, M.D. feels prayer is a useful form of healing. "Holistic medicine", which grew out of the New Age movement, is accepted by many physicians. Acupuncture has been used by nurses as an alternative for methadone in drug treatment programs. Many scientists and many in the medical profession, at first rejected these medical practices as mere placebos, without any scientific basis.

This paragraph is very biased towards the New Age movement. There are hundreds of thousands of examples of how people employ new ideas and change old thinking in the mainstream today. These New Age spiritualists, defy the suspicious labellings of the ignorant and embetter humanity. No longer does spirit mean "evil spirits", as once labelled by an older society of heavily indoctrinated christian dualists. New Age spirituality never was found in some hidden cellar with black robed people chanting satanic diatribes. Recognition of another force naturally occuring, invisible, and responsive to prayer has existed since the shamanic and pagan traditions. Now, we are beginning to see the results of removing the castigating labels of Good and Evil. Some people can simply plug in to a spiritual connection and use that event to introduce a system that helps us all.

What does that have to do with the paragraph being very biased towards the movement?

It isn't biased, but I knew when I wrote it that someone would use the NPOV excuse to remove it. I think it belongs at the end of the article as a summary. A few more paragraphs to add to the summary also, plus the external links section at the bottom. And I have quite a few in mind ! Thanks for everyone helping, but again, nobody's really adding new content. We need writers not editors at this stage in the article's development, and ironically all we get is editing. ~BF

Just to clarify, I copied the "removed paragraphs" to here exactly as I found them. The ...very biased... comment, was obviously not written by the original author, but not by me either. --Robert Merkel

I'm curious as to why Freemasonry is mentioned in this article. Freemasonry has existed at very least since 1717, and some historians date it as existing as early as the 8th century AD, although there is a great deal of controversy about this. How does it relate to the "New Age" philosophy? I don't ask this to cause an argument, but I don't think that there's enough explaination of this in the article. -- Alex Kennedy

A quote from the History section states "it was based on already existent, but dormant, religious/philosophical movements". If you bothered to click the external link shown at the beginning of this section it might reveal the overall context of a much larger treatment on New Age. Because no one has actually written new content for this article besides me---they have only edited existing content---and no one researched the topic New Age and written anything besides me, this History section is there with special permission by the author Michael, who is one of those people that have researched the topic. Most of the revisions on this article are by people who NEVER did anything to help, sadly only to destroy.

Well, I'm sorry that things don't seem to be working out for you right at the moment. I wish you hadn't said "If you bothered to click the external link ..." as it indicates a rude and inconsiderate nature, and I'm sure you now regret it. I did go and click the link, and the only section that seemed to have relevance said "The leaders who stood at the craddle of the birth of the nation were influenced by Masonic, Spiritualistic and Rosicrucian thought. "A New Order of the Age begins" proclaims the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States. Eight signatories of the Declaration of Independence were Freemasons, amongst whom Benjamin Franklin (see image) and George Washington, as were sixteen subsequent presidents." Now, the incription on the Great Seal says "Novus Ordo Secolorum," if I remember correctly (I do not have United States money to check), meaning, I believe, "a New Order of the World." But I could be wrong. In any event, none of this seems to relate to Freemasonry, and, as someone with a passing knowledge of Freemasonry, I don't see how it relates to the "New Age" movement. Perhaps you could explain this to me, although I would request that you do so without anger, as I am sure we are all freinds in our quest for understanding here. -- Alex Kennedy

BF, I'm willing to make this article my number one priority for the next little while, if you'd like to work with me (keeping in mind that I have exams coming up, so my Wikipedia time will be rather limited). I've been staying away from this page, but taking a look I can see that it is in a rather sorry state.

The problem is exactly as you say: you are providing most of the content, while most other people are editing. The reason for this, I think, is that most other Wikipedians aren't very interested in the New Age article. You are, and so you write. However, since you are passionate about this topic, your writing often isn't NPOV. That's something almost every Wikipedian cares about, and so they try to edit it so that it fits the guidelines for an encyclopedia. Thus, they're not trying to ruin the article, but simply keep it from being uncritical New Age envangelism. However, since there's one writer and many editors, the article gets chopped up into the state we see now.

I've done quite a bit of research into the New Age movement over the past few years, since comparative religion and philosophy are both strong interests of mine (I've been avoiding the philosophical topics on Wikipedia though, since our good Mr. Sanger has his Ph.D in that field :)). A good article on any topic like this should cover the views of both the adherents and the critics. Since you're an adherent, and I'm a critic, we seem qualified. :) So, if you don't mind working with an Anglican, we can get to work. What do you think? --Stephen Gilbert

Sure Steven, love to work with someone! There are more parts to New Age than science can prove, more experiences that are real to people who are not duped, not scam artists, and who feel such happines when they meet others who share the similar things. This is why New Age people seem like a cult. They all know something others will not accept. This experiential treatment must be allowed in here, even if you have to make it safe inside the npov filters.

Great! I have a few ideas to start with:

The organization of the page is a bit of a mess due to the situation I mentioned previously. Since "New Age" is really an umbrella term for a wide variety of related concepts, I think that this article would serve best as a broad introduction and a "jump off" page that leads to more specific articles, something like the philosophy page. The article could be broken down into section as it is now, but each section would have an introduction, and then a link to a more detailed article, such as History of the New Age movement.
The current introduction is quite good, but needs to be fleshed out quite a bit.

My comments in blue. The introduction needs to be changed. This is my idea... add another side of New Age(the experiential side which defines the topic best) because it will be more accurate and less verbose. My add-on will not have many wikied links to definitions. This would be stated just under the first paragraph and go something like this: "New Age is also a continuum of eclectic beliefs ranging from Physics on the factual/science side, through casual experimenters in new age topics(listed in the A to Z part)in the middle, to 'hard core' [don't misinterpet this] New Agers who live their lives totally swept in by the movement." I have never liked the stodgy terminology in the present introduction. It reads like someone is explaining something they don't like, in language that most people rarely use, to over-intellectualize the topic, and not make it reader-friendly.

The excerpt from Michael has some good information about New Age beliefs and their roots, but it needs to be rewritten. For example, Alex has contended that Freemasonry has nothing to do with New Age, while Michael says that it does. Even if Alex is correct in his contention, the Freemansory reference shouldn't be removed, but simply put into context. Off the top of my head, something like, "The New Age movement claims to find its roots in traditions of Freemansonry. Mansons, however, find this claim implausable, due to their emphasis on using reason and logic to seek truth, in contrast with the New Age emphasis on revelation and intuition." Um... only better than that. :)

Michael links to this article from his web site. I agree that some people may have a problem understanding different POV than their own on any subject. But, we need to "let all the horses out" on this topic and not worry if people find it controversial. New Age is controversial to the mainstream US citizens, but it is also changing the mainstream slowly. We can put Michael's article in a special section as you mentioned below, which means now, that I'll need help rewriting the history section. And the boldface headings can be like philosophy article, so let me do the them first and you can edit them or expand the in depth linked new pages.

As Larry mentioned above, we need examples of New Age writing and belief to quote and paraphrase. Maybe we could compile a list of people, books and the like on the Workshop page, and use it to help find sources to back up claims of what respresents New Age belief.
We need to present conflicts and critiques fairly and as generously as possible. This is a sword that cuts both ways: an article on New Age must present both the critiques of others against the New Age movement, but also the critiques that the New Age movement makes against other thought systems. For example, it is important to point out that some Christian groups believe that the New Age movement is inspired by Satan, but this view is not opinion of all Christians. Likewise, the article should point out that New Agers criticise Christianity for dogmatic and anti-spiritual practices.

This part will be easy. Just take the 3 talk sections, and copyedit the dialog right out of them. You may have noticed the critiques there and my defenses. Who won out ? Not me, but now maybe we can both have all sides presented, hopefully avoiding the petty squabbles such as,"what do you mean by 'paradigm shift' ?" That one really got to me. I don't use many intellectual terms because the truth should be presented simply. And New Age is a whole new POV as far as truth goes. I also want to do an in-depth on the Spirituality heading to show how deeply embedded the Judeo-Christian ethos is in the US, perhaps in western civilization ! People believe that Church is a good thing. They think that the Bible is accurate and been around since Adam. New Age is viewed as a thorn in the side to many Christians because one of its best features is exposing the deception in the Bible along with jumping on new archeological supportive evidence (Nag Hammadi, Essene Scrolls, etc).

This computer lab is closing, so I have to run. I'll do some work on the article later. --Stephen Gilbert

I'd also like to see, if at all possible, a brief (or at least concise) definition of what falls under the umbrella of "New Age" at the beginning of the article. The fact that I'm not entirely sure what "New Age" means, aside from those little bits which are obvious, is what leads to my lack of articulation about why Freemasonry is unrelated to the New Age movement. As I said in my little snippet, it seems that the only point of contact between Freemasonry and the New Age movement is that both involved received thought and the use of allegory. But in all else, the two seem quite different --Alex Kennedy

Nobody seems to have worked on this article for quite some time; I want to start by saying that the long, quoted passages make a questionable contribution to this article in particular for two reasons; one described previously by Larry Sanger, which is that in general such passages inhibit the ability of wikipedians to continuously refine the ideas presented, and the other that the paragraphs quoted contain POV material, logical fallacies and inaccuracies.

Here's the first big quote in italics, with my comments indented:

What became known as the New Age movement injected new life into almost forgotten traditions at a time that Christian faith had lost its meaning for the younger generation.

This seems to imply that many of the phenomena and belief systems characterized as "New Age" were absent and 'almost forgotten' prior to this period. But most if not all of the phenomena listed below as "New Age", for example spirit readings (modern "channeling"), clairvoyance, mesmerism, belief in healing powers of certain metals or crystals, use of prayer and meditation as paths to enlightenment, yoga, etc., can all be continuously traced as not uncommon practices in Europe and America extending back from the current day; and their social prominence or lack thereof in Western culture is a cyclic phenomenon.

It would be better to say that the popularity of these ideas has waxed and waned over time in the west (as noted in succesive paragraphs of the quote), without ever either disappearing or becoming mainstream.

In addition, the statement that "...Christian faith had lost its meaning for the younger generation" seems a bit sweeping (and possibly unsubstantiated). This might be better characterized as a loss of confidence in the authoritarian structure of the larger Christian Denominations; and an increasing reliance on a personal revelation for many Christians, as well as spiritual seekers in general.

New Age's greatest growth has been in the United States. This is not surprising, as it was based on already existent, but dormant, religious/philosophical movements which had come to a head in the nineteenth century.

Why should it be surprising? Or not surprising, for that matter? The prominent religious/philosophical movements of the 19th century which would today be called "New Age" were also strong in places like Germany and England. For example, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes series, wrote a book expressing his strong belief in the reality of spirits in the form of sprites and fairies. See a few paragraphs below, where even the popularization of the term "New Age" is traced to an associate of Gurdjieff and George Bernard Shaw - neither of them prominent Americans.

Furthermore, is there evidence that the New Age movement is actually a primarily American pheneomenon?

As we have seen Oriental religion and the European occult traditions had made a great impact on the intellectual elite of America in the nineteenth century . The second president John Adams(1767-1848) is known for his fascination with Oriental thought. He was a voracious reader of the translations of Eastern religious works.

John Adams, in his A Defence of the Constitution of Government of the United States (1787), suggests that "the rich, the well-born and the able should be set apart from other men in a senate". Is this an Oriental thought or New Age concept? Would we call George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan members of todays "intellectual elite"?

The leaders who stood at the cradle of the birth of the nation were influenced by Masonic, Spiritualistic, and Rosicrucian thought.

I think a leader who spent a fair amount of time at the cradle such as Thomas Jefferson, while being strongly in favor of each individual making their own individual religious choices, would not seem to have a huge amount in common with most of what is currently called "New Age" (see Jefferson on Deism; for example, "Man once surrendering his reason, has no remaining guard against absurdities the most monstrous, and like a ship without rudder, is the sport of every wind". This seems quite anti-thetical to New Age propositions, which seem to rely less on reason, and more on intuition.

'A New Order of the World'(NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM) proclaims the reverse side of the Great Seal of the United States.

This is a mistranslation; the accepted translation is "A New Order of the Ages", and was apparently meant to be a reference to a poem by Virgil. It was chosen by Charles Thomson who wrote ""The date underneath [the pyramid] is that of the Declaration of Independence and the words under it signify the beginning of the new American Æra, which commences from that date." (See [1] (http://www.greatseal.com/mottoes/seclorum.html), greatseal.com.)

It's unclear how this ties into "New Age", except that similar words are used.

Eight signatories of the Declaration of Independence were Freemasons, amongst whom Benjamin Franklin (see image) and George Washington, as were sixteen subsequent presidents.

Independent of the disputed numbers of signatories who were Masons (references exist stating that there as many as 15), it's not clear what connection, if any, there is between Freemasonry and "New Age" ideas; aside from the fact that Freemasons are generally encouraged to be tolerant and non-dogmatic. A further list of famous Masons also includes Prussian monarch Frederick the Great and English monarch George II; astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Gus Grissom and John Glenn; jazz trumpeter Louis Armstrong, cowboy singer Gene Autry, writer Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain), and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. What connection does their Masonry have with any kind of New Age thinking in the areas of Prussia, space flight, jazz, country-western music, British politics, or American fiction and satire? (see additional exhaustive list of famous Masons at [[2] (http://www.masonicinfo.com/famous.htm)]).

A possible historical reason for the perception of a connection could be Alistair Crowley's Ordo Templi Orientalis, with its presumptive ties to Freemasonry (staunchly denied by the main Masonic orders) see [3] (http://users.erols.com/solequis/secret_societies/phoneymasonry.htm) for some history.

Prominent American writers, who became known as the Transcendentalists, were deeply influenced by Eastern thought. Ralph Waldo Emerson(1803-1882) was one of the great admirers of Oriental religious classics, notably the Bhagavad Gita. His secretary, Henry David Thoreau wrote Walden, a source of inspiration for hippies a century later.

Again, it's not clear that reading (and understanding) the Bhagavad Gita implies a connection with the "New Age"; particularly since many millions of Indians have been doing this for centuries. Exactly what "Eastern influences" are being discussed here? Are Buddhists "New Age" if they are American, but not if they are Chinese? What relationship is there between alien abduction and the Transcendentalists?

New Age was primarily a movement amongst the younger generation in the late sixties that demanded to play a greater part in all aspects of society, and therefore in a very real sense was separated from the historical events listed above.

It would be more accurate to say that the "New Age" movement was in resonance with a general post World War II societal movement, shared by many young Americans and Europeans, demanding a greater part in all aspects of society and less of a reliance on authority structures; some segments of that movement focusing primarily on political goals and methods, other segments focusing primarily on spiritual goals and methods, and still others focusing on various other "life-style" options.

Through the use of mind-expanding drugs, a greater reality was being unfolded to them ...

Neutral Point Of View?

...that called for other explanations than traditional religion could give. Its concepts of God and Love were too narrow to accommodate the overwhelming experiences they had on their trips. Transcendence, self-realisation, yoga, meditation, all part of existing traditions, were being rediscovered and practised.

Or perhaps more accurately, being discovered by American and European youth. Transcendence, self-realisation, and meditation were all being practised in the west in various monasteries and nunneries of the Christian persuasion; and again, the untold millions of living Hindus and Buddhists had never forgotten transcendence, self-realisation, yoga, meditation, etc.

Originally the New Age had been given the name: the Age of Aquarius to signify the new era of spiritual enfoldment as foretold in astrology.

... originally named by whom? when? ...

In the early seventies, when the movement was well on its way, the name New Age was adopted. Of course, the term had actually been used for many years prior to this.

Of course? Then in what way was it adopted in the 70s? By whom?

Gurdjieff follower A. R. Orage had already founded a magazine, partly funded by George Bernard Shaw, by the name of New Age in 1906.

As might be expected, the New Age unleashed counter-forces from the side of fundamentalist Christian denominations.

Since we haven't actually defined New Age yet except as a loose collection of at times conflicting beliefs, in some way influenced by Eastern philosophies, can we say "the New Age" unleashed something?

Especially after Marilyn Furguson wrote in her book The Aquarian Conspiracy that the fraternity dedicated to this philosophy constituted a worldwide network. Dedicated persons would recognize each other in a few minutes without secret signs, but merely by a short exchange of ideas.

NPOV? (Shibboleth?)

This was seen as a sort of Satanic conspiracy. Especially people who followed so-called occult practices came under suspicion. The orthodox Christian establishment found allies in the equally dogmatic skeptics and members of The Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (CSICOP) in their efforts to suppress and misrepresent New Age and occultism in the media.

While CSICOP might easily be characterized as "dogmatic" (or even "obsessed"), it is (at the least) highly POV to describe their efforts as "suppressing or misrepresenting" New Age ideas; instead, as skeptics, they insist that those who purport to possess special powers or abilities to demonstrate these abilities in a repeatable fashion; that's what skeptics do. After all, as noted in the next quoted paragraph, surely some of those flying under the banner of "New Age" have been shown to be charlatans of the first water (see 'Miss Cleo' psychic hot line forgives $500 million in customer debts, [4] (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2002/11/14/financial1725EST0299.DTL)); so certainly some skepticsim is justified.

(Incidentally, Freemason, Shriner, and skeptic Harry Houdini dedicated much of his later life to the exposure of various and sundry bogus "spirit-circles".)

New Age has not traveled to the end of the road yet. It is reaching a stage of maturity in which chaff is being separated from the wheat. Yet, it still comprises a broad spectrum of activities from the commercial rip-offs to those motivated by an unselfish dedication to serve mankind spiritually.

Many do not wish to be associated with the name because it reminds them of the turbulence associated with the uprising of the younger generation in the late sixties and the lamentable drug excrescences.

"Excrescence : An outgrowth or enlargement, especially an abnormal one, such as a wart." Perhaps the writer was searching for a combination of "excesses" and "experiences".

If the movement will sustain its original purity and raise high the spirit of new generations, it will gain an immense vista of life and a purpose to live for.

NPOV? (Not to mention grammer - is the movement gaining a purpose to live for?)

In summary, it is not in keeping with the goals of Wikipedia to retain large blocks of quoted text, protected from editing as a direct quote from an author, especially when such quotes contain so much unsupported and POV material. I can make these comments; but as the original author cannot provide a rebuttal, the material must either be removed or left standing as is. Chas zzz brown 00:36 Nov 17, 2002 (UTC)

In addition to removing the above quoted material for the reasons stated, I also removed the quote relating metaphysics and New Age. As noted in the original article, this quoted section gives an incorrect etymology for metaphysics, mis-characterizes the accepted philosophical meaning for the term, and takes several paragraphs to essentially state that "New Agers" are "into" spirituality, just like she is. Chas zzz brown 01:33 Dec 7, 2002 (UTC)

Chazz we're having editing conflicts! 2 in a row isn't a coincidence. Of course coincidences are beliefs generally of people who have spiritual tunnel vision. I'll wait a bit and try to do another fibonacci natural restoration. ~BF

You may be encountering general server problems; I haven't edited this page or the main article in several days. Hope you get your general account problems solved; I think the Wikipedia:Village Pump is the right place to go. Cheers Chas zzz brown 01:07 Dec 12, 2002 (UTC)

BTW, a link such as (Back to New_Age) isn't strictly neccesary; the "View Article" link on any talk page will take you back as well. Also, I'd personally prefer if, rather than using alternate colors for your text, you would use the typical "identation" style of offsetting your text; magenta text on an off-white background comes across as shouting to me (as well as being hard to read :) ) Chas zzz brown 01:07 Dec 12, 2002 (UTC)

Ok Chazz. I like the categorized footer of the article. I'm sure you read some of the talk. It may be time to begin writing, instead of talking about writing. Thanks for your help. BF 22:46 Dec 12, 2002 (UTC)

You want invisible messages? BF 22:46 Dec 12, 2002 (UTC)

copied from User:Chas_zzz_brown talk page

I know you did a lot of work on New_Age. Some of the objectivity tends to have a condescending approach, which I corrected. I have no clue where this non NPOV came from, and am not suggesting you did this. btw, i got things "squared-away" again. BF 01:56 Dec 13, 2002 (UTC)

I do try to keep things NPOV, and appreciate correction if I go overboard. Certainly, even for someone not sympathetic to New Age ideas (as well as those sympathetic to them), there is a need for an accurate representation of exactly what is meant by the term. Is the Dali Lama New Age? Is a Tibetan-Nepali follower of the Dali Lama New Age? How about an American follower? A relatively new therapy for cancer sufferers is for a health worker to beam energy at the tumor. If the energy is radiation from a cesium source, we don't call that New Age, but if the radiation is in the form of Qi, we do call that New Age. Why? The primary measure I'm trying to reach towards is that the article should answer the question, what exactly do we mean by "New Age"?

You may note that I reverted a lot of your reformatting - there are good reasons to avoid HTML and to maintain a standard outline form (see Wikipedia:Manual of style); not that I always love the resulting look, but I agree that consistency in this case translates to better readability and thus comprehension - and that's a good goal!

I think the next area I would like to see fleshed out is - what is it about New Age spirituality (if anything) that makes it distinct from, say, Pentecostal Christian spirituality, or the spirituality of Zen Buddhists or Hindus? If there isn't something distinct about the New Age definition of spirituality, then we needn't expand on it here except to note that this is an area of great interest for New Agers; there is a perfectly good article to be found at spirituality which, if it is lacking in detail, can be worked on separately.

Alternatively, it may be that we can identify someone as New Age because they places a different value on spirituality than, say, your average american Quaker, Jew, or Muslim (this may or may not be true). If neither of these approaches are correct, it's hard to see how to flesh this section out in a useful way.

As a final point, I note that you removed the link to Quackwatch. This link is intended to represent the views of those who are skeptical of the effectiveness and safety of some New Age medical treatments (as noted in the article); while you may feel that the term "quack" in "QuackWatch" is unneccesarily harsh, I feel the link is important as it accurately represents this alternate view, and in particular especially focuses on nasty people who take advantage of those in need by falsely wrapping themselves in the clothing of higher goals. The site is well documented, and is not merely a "diatribe" against "wooly-headedness", but actually tries to present rational arguments regarding the success and failure of various modes of treatment. I have added additional links of a more general nature which are more sympathetic to, and explanatory of, various alternate modes of treatment. Cheers Chas zzz brown 03:30 Dec 13, 2002 (UTC)

Chazz- I understand your reasoning about putting both sides of the story in here to try to be neutral. This is good journalism, yet, as I always have said since the first, New Age ideas and feelings are experiential to a large extent, not necessarily "scientific method" duplicable, and presenting the non New Age pov tends to drain all the energy out of the article for me at least. It's been a struggle for too long! Should you have read the talk archives, you may have found one golden idea presented... that New Agers live in a faith-based system, hence the word "paradigm-shift". I do think in the new age realms, and fall back down inside the conventional world often. The great authors and thinkers of any time lived in their own world while gathering their information. Some were able to convey clearly their ideas without losing a lot of the luster. I may have to quote from my journal very loosely to expand the Spirituality of New Agers vs. other religions. Bear with me, and above all, allow the metaphor to show Beauty. The New Age is already here! Cultural lag is catching up. BF 05:07 Dec 13, 2002 (UTC)

Good page, although a tad long..the new age movement covers way too many areas. :)

Other than that, good page.

Sincerely yuors, AntonioMartin

Thanks for the good will. Many people have worked on the article and half of it was chopped. It would appear to be a long writeup until the reader realized something: the New Age is here. It was assimilated by the American culture. There is a polarity, of course, between the old age clingers(the status-quo filled with Fear) and the new age leaders(bearers of Living Water, i.e. Aquaria) which has stymied the creative flow of the article since it began. The outcome of this polarity may cause an awakening in many people's minds, learning there are no longer winners and losers. We all win, all the time, given the chance, rather than how it was at one time. Hundreds of commentaries can be found in my journal on Universal Truths, a stark contrast to conventional typical reality(norms) accepted en masse. Any of these truths are so easy and so simple to understand; I discovered these truths act like variables in generalized Relativity-styled equations, meaning you can insert any concept into the formula and it is always true. Didn't mean to write an article-length reply! BF 01:59 Dec 17, 2002 (UTC)

What is New Age?

New Age: the ensemble of thelemic doctrines; Religion: the ensemble of thelesmic doctrines.

Thelema: behaving anarchically; expressed by Aleister Crowley in The Book of the Law as "Do what you wilt is the whole law."; Thelesma: aware choice; expressed by Hermes Trismegistus in The Emerald Tablet as discrimination.

The message of New Age: "You don't think. You're an animal. That's good. Enjoy!"; The message of religion: "You don't think. You're an animal. That's evil. Wake up!".

Apparently in the other category: Anthroposophy, Grail's Movement, Jehovah's Witnesses and Mormonism.

Thelema is always the thelesma of another entity. This is proven by the New Age stance of renunciation to thinking, in search of a so-called peace of soul. Since good entities are not imposive, it follows that thelema is always evil. It is the displacement of personal will through the suggestions of another will. Its purpose is the entitive annihilation, and its consequences are anarchy and anomy.

The thelemic increment is the tiny and apparently innocent quantity of added thelema. On a longer period, the general decay becomes evident.

(Above thelesma means enabling personality and thelema means taking over a personality by giving it a twisted idea that it is able to do everything, with no consequences whatsoever).

The above was copy/pasted from http://members.home.nl/tgeorgescu/newage.html

"Intellect Club"? Nice try, whoever you aren't! BF

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