New Age Movement

Reincarnation, auras, and energizing crystals — surely these are the stuff of fairy tales, nothing more. People don’t really speak to ancient Egyptian holy men, or listen seriously to Shirley MacLaine, for that matter — do they?

Drawing from a range of occult, pagan, and pseudo-scientific traditions, the New Age Movement is broad, diffuse, hard to nail down — and insidiously dangerous. Its belief in the ‘divinity of humanity,’ its emphasis on ‘self-actualization,’ and its looking forward to a coming Utopian ‘new world’ have tremendous appeal. But does it have the truth?