The cluster of values, beliefs and activities known collectively as New Age has become a disappointment for me. A few years ago I considered myself something of a New Ager, associating the term with positive values such as enlightenment; open-mindedness; truth-seeking; rationality; a healthy skepticism regarding Establishment values; and a progressive social agenda promoting peace, love, and justice. Sadly, while New Agers sometimes do embody these values, my observations in recent years have repeatedly brought me face to ugly face with the discrepancy between their notional values and the traits which are so often manifest in their actions. Too often, what New Agers call "open-mindedness" is really gullibility, "sensitivity" is suggestibility, and "enlightenment" is self-righteous dogmatism. "Truth-seeking" steps through the New Age looking glass and becomes rigid defense of emotionally held positions, with an amazing propensity for evading, ignoring or screaming bloody murder about any rational critique. In an Orwellian twist, "rationality" becomes irrationality, as indeed it must if fallacious but comforting beliefs are to be maintained. Thus also, "healthy skepticism regarding Establishment values" becomes closed-minded rejection of unpleasant ideas coupled with desperate swallowing of whatever "feels right", while the progressive social agenda falls by the wayside in the avaricious rush to fleece the flock, or degenerates into blaming others (science, the Establishment, etc.) for the worlds ills. And to think there was a time when I felt that my having changed from a Bible-pounding fundamentalist to a New Ager constituted progress!

Recently my friend Jai tried to recruit me into a New Age pyramid scheme. My attempts to focus on the specifics in order to explain that pyramid schemes are inherently rip-offs were met with vague metaphysical slogans such as "You've got to get out of that poverty consciousness and into prosperity consciousness", "The universe is abundant" and "You have to get past that linear thinking, Dixon; this isn't linear" (although Jai clearly had no objection to a linear increase in his bank account). To my surprise and disappointment, when I asked him if he thought that money would be produced from thin air so that everyone in the pyramid could profit with no one losing, he endorsed that as a possibility.* When I pressed on with my effort to explain the simple facts, he terminated the conversation.

*Unfortunately, space limitations do not allow us to fully explore the ramifications of this idea such as: Would the materialized money have been magically transported from someones coffers, in which case it would be grand larceny, or would it literally manifest from "thin air", in which case it would be counterfeiting? What would the serial numbers be? Would they all be the same? And would the bills feature the traditional portraits of dead presidents, or would they perhaps depict someone more appropriate, such as Shirley MacLaine, Uri Geller or some other icons of New Age hucksterism?

This anecdote gives us several examples of what we may call "New Age sewage": 1) the attempt to disguise plain, old-fashioned money-grubbing with a veneer of New Age rhetoric, like a reeking harridan slathered with cheap perfume; 2) the assiduous avoidance of looking at any unpleasant facts (manifest here as his repeated retreat from specifics into vague slogans); 3) herculean feats of irrationality and credulousness, in order to maintain the desired belief; 4) fallacious attempts to invalidate the person challenging the belief; and, when all else fails, 5) termination of the dialogue.

Please note that I'm not faulting Jai for being wrong about pyramid schemes. We all make honest mistakes. What really disappointed me was the considerable effort he put into avoiding being corrected. The payoff in a situation like this is clear: by avoiding the conscious acknowledgment that what youre doing is fraudulent, you can have your cake and eat it, too--that is, you can get the money without suffering the guilt that would appropriately accompany the knowledge that you had profited from a swindle. Thus, such vehement resistance to reasoned critique is pandemic among those who profit from various New Age goods and services, from crystals to channeling to unproven therapies to astrology to magic potions, et cetera, ad nauseum. Moreover, most of the aforementioned strategies are common even in situations wherein no money is involved, as the emotional need for sustaining a belief is typically enough to maintain the defense mechanisms. A troubling aspect of Jais case is that, as a professional psychotherapist, he should be particularly ready, willing and able to engage in a critique of his own thinking/feeling. One shudders to think what habits of thought the numerous New Age therapists are reinforcing in their clients.

One reason I feel so strongly about these issues is that I'm torn between two worlds. There's still a lot I like about the New Age crowd. I like to be with peace-and-justice oriented people who dress creatively, dance wildly, hug a lot, and get naked, and I'm more likely to find these cuddly people amongst the New Age crowd. On the other hand, while I love the real warmth as well as the honesty, open-mindedness and intellectual rigor of the scientific/skeptical community, they're more likely to be afflicted with a sometimes repugnant political and social conservatism. As one would expect of a group consisting largely of people whose livelihoods depend on big business, government, and the military-industrial complex, they often fail to turn the light of their much-touted skepticism upon the claims, assumptions and values of those entrenched social institutions. The people I'm most comfortable with are those who combine the best of both worlds, but such people are few and far between, partly because of a lack of real communication, not to mention rapprochement, between the two "cultures".

Thus I often find myself in uncomfortable social situations. For instance, recently I participated in an event billed as Drumming for World Peace. I love drumming and, of course, peace, and I value ritual if it doesnt invoke constructs such as gods or other ideas I don't believe in. But this event turned silly when a woman got up on stage and spoke to us. She made it clear that she (and, I think, most of those assembled there) believed that the drumming in and of itself constituted work towards world peace. There was vague talk about some kind of vibration or energy that was rising up from the drum circle and somehow subtly nudging the world away from militarism and towards peace, love and harmony. I accept that rituals such as drum circles could have positive social effects insofar as they make people mindful of issues such as world peace and motivate them to do something substantive for the cause, such as donating money or distributing brochures, but the claim this woman was making went far beyond that, into the realm of magical thinking. One of my biggest fears about this kind of thinking is that people who otherwise would do something substantive for a good cause may not do so, on the assumption that theyve already done their part by drumming, praying or otherwise ritualizing. Another problem is that the credibility of valid ideas about peace, justice and the environment is compromised when such ideas are packaged with dubious beliefs like astrology, psychic powers, and unproven alternative therapies. Thus I fear that people who might otherwise be recruited into the good fight for worthy social causes are driven away by the associated New Age baggage. In situations like this drum circle I get uncomfortable because I fear that my participation in the event looks like an endorsement of the silly ideas espoused therein. I feel a need, even a responsibility, to stand up and dispute the prevailing dogma, but that would be considered inappropriate, largely because any rigorous critique of cherished beliefs, no matter how diplomatically expressed, is taken as a personal affront in New Age culture.

So I remain uncomfortably torn between two cultures, and particularly disappointed in the so-called New Age. This is not to say that New Agers are any worse than fundamentalists, white supremacists, or numerous other more traditional movements; indeed, the basic patterns of irrationality are essentially the same in all of these groups. My greater disappointment in the New Age reflects the fact that I once had high hopes that it would be a radical improvement over the others, and now I'm afraid that I was wrong.

But I haven't given up on my New Age friends. They represent a lot of intelligence, talent and good will which could yet do the world considerable good. I would like to help bridge the New Age and the scientific/skeptical cultures, so we may evolve a synthesis of rationality and social consciousness that could bring about a real new age. Who would care to join in this effort?

Dixon Wragg is an ex-fundamentalist preacher, ex-hippie, and ex-New Ager. He is now a skeptic and plans to stay that way.

Copyright 1997 Resources for Independent Thinking