Network or Milieu?

Debates about connections and overlaps between the NAM and other movements such as other NRMs, the Neo-pagan movement, the HHM, and the

HPM, also have a bearing on the concept of New Age. First of all, there are scholars who regard both the NAM and NRMs as movements which emerged from the counter-cultural ferment in the USA and Western Europe in the 1960s; but the relationship between the two movements is interpreted differently among scholars. For example, Melton views the NAM, as a part of the broad category of NRMs, as I have showed in the previous section, while Paul Heelas tends to include the latter in the former (Heelas, 1996, p.9). According to Heelas, all new spiritualities, new cults and new religions which have emerged since the 1960s are covered by the label ‘New Age’, which is also known as the ‘Age of Aquarius’ and grew out ofthe counter-culture in the late 1960s and the early 1970s. Therefore, the Japanese new religion Soka Gakkai is included in the category of the New Age (Heelas, 1993, p.107; 1996). Although Heelas is aware of the various usages of the term ‘New Age’ in the media, he suggests that it can be identified as a relatively distinctive concept by using it to

designate people who maintain an ‘inner spirituality’ which emphasises that the ‘Self’ is sacred. However, Kemp (2004) indicates that there are similarities between the ideals of the New Age and the ideals of the counter-cultural trend of the 1960s. These ideals promote an alternative lifestyle and reject

mainstream culture, and they ‘involve, inter alia, Eastern religion and other non-conventional philosophies, radical politics, peace campaigning, feminism, “coming out” and civil rights’ (p.32).

With regard to the connections between the NAM and the Neo-pagan movement, Michael York (1995) discusses the differences, similarities and overlaps between these two Movements, and suggests that both of them can be regarded as a part of the broader explosion of NRMs. According to York

(1995, p.33, pp.145-177), both New Age and Neo-paganism are manifestations of the Western occult tradition, particularly the American metaphysical

tradition which includes Spiritualism, Theosophy, the Arcane School, Astara, New Thought, the Divine Science Church, the Church of Religious Science, the Unity School of Christianity, Christian Science, the Association for Research and Enlightenment and the Spiritual Frontiers Fellowship. In addition, both of them can be regarded as expressions of the ‘cultic milieu’, which is a term originally proposed by Colin Campbell (1972), to designate ‘all deviant belief-systems and their associated practices’ and ‘unorthodox science, alien and heretical religion, deviant medicine, …the collectivities, institutions, individuals and media of communication associated with these beliefs’ (p. 122). Therefore, the Euro-American metaphysical tradition and the counterculture of the 1960s together constitute the occult underground of the cultic milieu. York suggests that New Age fits into the category of ‘cultic milieu’ because it is a ‘blend of pagan religions, Eastern philosophies, and occult-psychic phenomena’ (York, 1995, p.34). However, almost ten years after his major work on the NAM was published in 1995, York revised his opinion of the connection between the NAM and Neo-paganism:

My current way of thinking is now to see New Age thought as a sub-sect of pluralistic paganism. …The two spiritualities share an emphasis on self-determination, possess an inclination toward appropriation of ideas and practices from other religions, are anti-bureaucratic and institutional, seek spiritual restoration, the experience of enchantment and exploration of innovative practices, and, increasingly, an enhanced cherishing of ecological recovery and balance. …Furthermore, the two orientations are together united in their quest for recognition and survival vis-à-vis both traditional mainstream Christianity and any tendency toward a scientistic

monopoly. (York, 2005, p. 32)

On the other hand, in accordance with the perspective of the cultic milieu, Steve Bruce (1996a) argues that New Age is organised around ‘client cults’ and ‘audience cults’, which are terms proposed by Stark and Bainbridge (1985) in their examination of religious movements. According to Stark and

Bainbridge, client and audience cults promote ‘novel beliefsand practices’ but are far less organised (Bainbridge, 2004, p. 381):

An audience cult may have no discernable organization at all, consisting, for example, of an audience that reads books or watches television programs about novel beliefs and the authors of those books and programs who may have little or no contact with each other or with their audiences. A client cult has rudimentary organization, in that individual practitioners serve a clientele, such as astrologers casting horoscopes or mediums staging séances.

Therefore, in Bruce’s analysis, client cults are structured around individual relationships between consumers and providers. This category includes, for example, alternative therapists who advertise their services in appropriate media and provide individuals with consultations for a fixed fee (Bruce, 1996a, p.197). On the other hand, audience cults are structured around the mass distribution of the word, spoken and printed. Therefore, this category refers to the distribution systems of the New Age, such as books, magazines, audiocassettes and public lectures (p.198). As for the main themes of the New Age, Bruce refers to a summary by William Bloom, one of the movement’s spokespersons, that New Science, New Ecology, New

Psychology, and New Spirituality constitute New Age thought (pp.204-212). However, for Bruce (1998), the weakening of the social order is regarded as one of the social factors that causes belief in the New Age (p.30). New

Agers stress individualism and the inner ‘divine’, and therefore reject the imposition of social order and depend on cosmic consciousness to provide meaning and regularity. Bruce comments that New Age practices are ‘bad sociology’, in the sense that such a cosmic consciousness cannot provide New Agers with a way to order their lives. As a result, it cannot resolve the problems of the modern world. In other words, althoughNew Agers reject the existence of the social order, they cannot provide an alternative ‘feasible’ resolution in Bruce’s opinion.

There are also overlaps between the NAM and the HPM, the history of which can be track back to the early 19th Century. The work of the

psychologist, William James, was regarded as a ‘“precursor in the three areas of human potential” – the study of paranormal psychology, the existence of altered states of consciousness, and the documentation and investigation of incidences of human potentialities’ – even though the Movement was not fully developed until the late 1960s and early 1970s (Rose, 2005, p.61). The father of the HPM is Abraham Maslow; and his humanistic psychology and

transpersonal psychology became the primary schools of the HPM. Rose describes the direction of the influence of the HPM on the NAM as follows:

Although the [human potential] Movement itself and humanistic psychology generally may have declined in their importance to the New Age, many of their ideas and activities remain as significant tools. These have been described as ‘psychotechnologies’, that is, ‘systems for a deliberate change in consciousness’ (Rose, 2005, p.62).

The HHM is another phenomenon that overlaps in part with the NAM. Emerging in the 1960s, the HHM stresses that ‘the individual is responsible for her/his own actions, well-being, and quality of life and for discovering the path

toward complete self-realisation’ (Clarke, 2006, p.31). One of the basic beliefs in the HHM is that a human being is regarded as a total system of the body, mind and spirit in terms of holism. It promotes natural treatments, based on a belief that the universal life force is the healing energy. In this regard, Melton et al. (1990) argue that since the core element of the NAM is New Agers’ experiences of transformation, notably in the form of healing, especially with alternative medicines, the development of the NAM during the 1970s merged with the HHM to the extent that it is difficult to differentiate them from each other (pp. xiii-xx).

English-Lueck (1990) also indicates that the values and beliefs in the logic of holistic health are part of the NAM (p.4). She suggests that two interconnected aspects constitute the HHM:

Holistic health is a symbol, containing moral codes – values

referring to what life should be. The valued states include freedom from pain, passion, and selfishness, and a state of serenity, honesty, and creativity. There is also a commitment to ‘wellness’, meaning spiritual attunement with natural and social environments, as well as physical health. (p.16)

William Bloom further suggests that the two terms, ‘holistic’ and ‘New Age’, are interchangeable, because they refer to the same general phenomenon. Bloom even predicts that the use of the former will replace the latter in the long term when New Age is no longer ‘new’ in terms of culture (Kemp, 2004, p.30 cited in Bloom, 2001).

The debate about the relative merits of calling the NAM a ‘network’ or a ‘milieu’ will no doubt continue for some time. My contribution has been to show that both terms have strengths and weaknesses and that neither of them is entirely capable of capturing the sociological configuration of New Age

activities without major modification. I also believe that the imbrication of New Age and other forms of spirituality deserves closer examination. The partial overlap with alternative healing is important enough to receive separate discussion in the next section.