CONTEMPORARY  FAITH

7. NEW AGE OR NEW ERA.

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Estimated New Age creation year: 1875 in New York.

New Age Prophet: Helena Blavatsky.

Basic pillars of the New Age: Masonry - Spiritism - Theosophy or Gnosticism - Oriental Paganism.

Main New Age books: New Age, the challenge.

Headquarters / Capital in the New Age world: N / A.

Number of faithful around the world: Unknown.

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Main symbol of the New Age:

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Main deities of the New Age: Ascended Masters such as Jesus Christ or Buddha, among others.

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Basic principles of the New Age:

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Among the variety of creeds and practices, certain modes of thought are recurrent:

• The primacy of subjective experience. In keeping with its roots as a countercultural phenomenon and its syncretic nature, New Age followers seek to seek a relativistic approach to truth, frequently referring to the Vedic statement of "one truth, but many ways" that is also found in the statement. Zen Buddhism spiritual of "many roads, one mountain." This belief is not only an assertion of personal choice in religious matters, but also an assertion that truth itself is defined by the individual and his or her experience of it.

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This relativism is not merely a spiritual relativism, but it also extends to physical theories. Reality is considered in an experimental and subjective way. Many phenomena are not intended to be repeatable in the scientific sense, as they are presumed to be apparent only to the receiving mind; for example, it is claimed that a skeptical mind cannot achieve telepathy, as it is conditioned to close in on the phenomenon. This is another point of criticism of the New Age: its inability to produce falsifiable results, despite making claims that intersect in the field of science and not only of spirituality.

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• Rejection of scientism or "orthodox" science : There is a typical view based on mysticism (rather than theory and experience) to describe and control the external world. For example, tarot reading is believed to work because of the principle of interconnectivity, rather than seeing the success (or failure) of such reading as evidence of the principle of interconnectivity. The various vitalist theories of health and disease held by New Agers are just as many examples.

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Unlike the scientific method , the lack of results of some practices to achieve the expected response is not considered as a failure of the underlying theory, but is attributed to the interference of subtle factors, difficult to take into account and that are still unknown. .

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In this context of relativism, several common concepts can be found:

• Forces. It is commonly affirmed that there are subtle forces or agents, capable of interacting and producing changes on the spiritual world (in emotions for example) and the physical world (causing different phenomena to occur). These forces would be agents of change in nature, but unknown to science; and it is maintained that they operate by following rules such as physical forces. The concept can be equated to the traditional one of magic .

• Can. If forces are agents of change, power would be the accumulation of these forces or the ability to produce changes by paranormal means, it is usually considered concentrated in an object, place or person. Many believe this power transferable through physical contact or mere proximity to sources of power. Some believe that it can accumulate or be depleted in a person or object through a variety of mechanisms, as well as the way of life and the proclivity for esoteric practices that "waste" or "regain" power. This power is held to be observable by certain gifted individuals in the form of " auras " or energy ; And when it is in high concentration, there are those who believe that it can be dangerous.

• Spirit: the belief in a subtle and transcendent entity in self-conscious beings, is shared in all aspects of the New Age.

• An interconnected cosmos. The idea that entities are united at a fundamental level, and that such union sometimes manifests itself in the form of synchronicities or miracles , is also recurrent.

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Additionally, many New Age practices and beliefs draw on what can be called magical thinking , as defined by James Frazer in his monumental work The golden bough. Common examples are the principle that objects, once they come into contact, maintain a practical link, or that objects that have similar properties exert effects on each other; and the law of attraction .

Short description of the New Age.

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The term New age or New age - used since the second half of the 20th century - refers to the astrological age of Aquarius and arises from the belief that when the Sun "passes" from one sign of the zodiac to the next, being attributed to the background constellation — a bull , a goat , a scorpion , etc. — influences human beings. Name a heterogeneous set of religious or mythological beliefs and pseudoscientific practices.

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He maintains that with the arrival of the so-called Aquarian age - The New Age - a time of world peace, well-being and harmony has begun, leaving behind the Pisces age that would have meant 2000 years of conflicts and wars. It promotes an inconsistent and heterogeneous mix of different cults , philosophical currents , doctrines , ideologies , therapies , etc. Among these beliefs and practices are orientalism , esotericism , alternative medicine , occultism , relativism , religious syncretism , etc.

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Astrologers do not agree on the date of the beginning of the Age of Aquarius, since while some affirm that it began on February 4 , 1962 , 1 others oppose it and affirm that the Sun will not leave the constellation of Pisces. to enter that of Aquarius until the XXVII century. 2 3

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It is the belief in various elements, both sacred and scientific, that when followed by the interested subject, this will result in a stage of spiritual rebirth of everything and everyone, which will result in cosmic evolution "(Graef 2001: 62) . In addition to this, it could be said that when conducting the research it was found in most cases that the New Age discourse rejected the idea of ​​a God that is projected outside of us and of our created world, this God is replaced by a God found in each one of us. Most of the discourses that were analyzed focused on giving an integrative or holistic response about creation, while presenting it as flexible, in which each of the elements could be reformulated to suit the practitioner using various sacred goods. At the same time they maintained that all matter, both organic and inorganic, had energy and therefore life, only that it was in different stages of evolution. During the research carried out from March 1999 to March 20012, it was found that the majority of New Age practitioners in Mexico City believed that: “a New Era is entering, that surpasses the Christian Era or Age of Picis to give way to the Age of Aquarius, in which there will be the convergence of all individual spirits in a Cosmic Christ, who will be conceived as the center of evolution. " (Graef 2001: 62). They proposed that: "In this age any institutionalized mediation between the practitioner and the sacred will be discarded." (Idem). In addition to this, the New Age in Mexico City raises: a cosmic sacredness, the belief in reincarnation to be able to access the higher evolutionary scales, the inner search, it takes sacramental elements of an orientalist nature and makes them its own, but also adds elements of the Amerindian worldview and uses them at the same time. In this way, traditions as far away as Reiki, the temacal bath, the offal, purification, yoga, meditation, communion with nature, communion with the ancestors (even if these are of mythical origin), pacifism , etc., are involved in an aura of millenarian mysticism, in which the individual, and no longer the community, is the religious protagonist.

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Reference: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/39038291.pdf

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