Is New Age Good or Bad?

Answer 1

The so-called "new age movement" is broad in scope so it is difficult to make generalizations. The most obvious features are an increasing interest in the ideas of eastern spirituality such as zen Buddhism, taoism, and yoga as well as non traditional medicines like Chinese herbalism and acupuncture. Even alternative diets such as vegatarian, vegan, macrobiotic owe alot of their popularity to the new age movement .

the most common focus of new age practices seems to be exploring the relationship between the mind, body and spirit with the aim of attaining psychological and physical health and spirtual self-fullfillment.

the new age movement has roots in british and European spiritualist societies in the earlier part of the 20th century, but it took off in the united states in the 1960's and 70's, especially in California where many of it's most popular ideas first took hold.

Average people still think the majority of new age practices are flakey, but harmless. At the same time, some new age concepts have become mainstream and are accepted lifestyle choices among broad ranges of people. These include Yoga excercise, and Vegatarian diets (especially among women), chiropratic therapy, and enviromentalism. More controversial ideas include belief in psychic powers, or in the healing powers of certain crystals and copper bracelets.

Another new age concept that has failed to find mass acceptence is Polyamory: the idea that is feasible for someone be openly romanticly involved with more than one person at a time without causing harm to anyone.

While ideas like these and others seem strange or laughable to many, there are relatively few mainstream critics who believe them to be dangerous or "Evil".

Many fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. claim that New Age believers seduce the gullible or 'spirtually lost' leading them astry from traditional Christianity and closer to "the occult" which they believe to be "Satanic". this succeeds, they argue, because our increasingly secular society has not given our youth the proper spirtual guidence.

Certain intellectual critics trace the rise of the "me" generation and the general fracturing of social unity in the united states, Britain, and Europe to the new age movement's empahisis on "self-fullfillment" especially as practiced by the self actualization branch of the movement. The charge is that social responsibilty and class consiousness have been eroded by these concepts and have given way to a myopic culture which over-emphasizes "individuality" and "self-improvement".

The academic Ward Churchill has also criticized the new age movement as an instrument of cultural Imperialism that is exploitative of indigenous cultures, including Native American, by reducing it to a commodity to be traded.

In contrast to these criticisms The New Age movement has definitely raised awareness about many important ideas: the value of non western cultures, the concept of sustainable living and the importance of healthy eating and excercise.

Answer 2

Too disorganized at this point to be either one-they are still lost but at least trying