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DOI: 10.1177/0037768990460020041999 46: 145Social Compass

Wouter J. HANEGRAAFFNew Age Spiritualities as Secular Religion: a Historian's Perspective

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Social Compass 46(2), 1999, 145160

Wouter J. HANEGRAAFF

New Age Spiritualities as Secular Religion:a Historians Perspective

The New Age movement represents the historically innovative phenomenonof a secular type of religion based upon a radically private symbolism. Thisthesis is developed against the background of a three-part definition of

religion, according to which religion in general may manifest in the form ofeither religions or spiritualities. Secularization, in this context, refers notto a decline or disappearance but to a thorough transformation of religionunder the impact of new developments. The essence of this process lies in theautonomization of spiritualities with respect to religions: whilespiritualities had traditionally been embedded in the collective symbolism ofan existing religion, New Age spiritualities are manifestations of a radically private symbolism embedded directly in secular culture. From a historicalpoint of view, this phenomenon is new and unprecedented. Special attention isgiven to how and why private symbolism in the New Age context tends toconcentrate on the Self and its spiritual evolution.

Le mouvement du Nouvel Age est un phnomne innovateur en ce sens quilreprsente un nouveau type de religion sculire base sur un symbolismepriv. Lauteur dveloppe cette thse dans le cadre dune dfinition tripartite, selon laquelle la religion en gnral peut prendre la forme soit dunereligion, soit dune spiritualit. Dans ce contexte, la scularisation neconsiste pas en un phnomne de dclin ou de disparition de la religion, maisen une transformation de la religion sous linfluence de facteurs nouveaux.Le cur de ce processus rside dans lautonomisation des spiritualits parrapport aux religions: alors que les spiritualits traditionnelles

senracinaient dans le symbolisme collectif dune religion dj existante, les spiritualits du Nouvel Age trouvent directement leur fondement dans laculture sculire. Ce processus est un phnomne sans prcdent du point devue historique. Enfin, la question se pose de savoir comment et pourquoi lesymbolisme priv du Nouvel Age a tendance se focaliser sur le Soi et surlvolution spirituelle de celui-ci.

Some statements in the first chapter of Durkheims Elementary Forms ofReligious Life (Durkheim, 1995: 4344) may serve to suggest the challenge

of the New Age movement for the historian of religion. Having definedreligion as a social phenomenon, Durkheim mentions the alternativepossibility of individual religions that the individual institutes for himselfand celebrates for himself alone. Some people today, he writes, pose the

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question whether such religions are not destined to become the dominantform of religious lifewhether a day will not come when the only cult willbe the one that each person freely practices in his innermost self. Could it

be true that we witness the emergence of a new form of religion, which willconsist entirely of interior and subjective states and be freely construed byeach one of us? Durkheim recognizes that if this were the case, his owndefinition of religion would be in need of adaptation. But, he continues,since such radically private religion remains as yet no more than an uncer-tain future possibility, the scholar is justified for the moment in restrictinghimself to the religions of the past and the present. The implication is clear.Were such a radical religious individualism to become a fact, this wouldrepresent a radically new phenomenon: an unprecedented break withreligion as we know it from the past and the present.

I will argue that the new type of religion referred to by Durkheim hasindeed become a fact, and that the contemporary New Age movement is itsclearest manifestation. New Age exemplifies a new phenomenon which maybe defined as secular religion based on private symbolism. As such, itpresents a challenge to sociologists as well as to historians of religion. Thechallenge consists in trying to understand what the New Age phenomenoncan teach us about the processes of modernization and secularization, andtheir significance with respect to the systematic study of religions.

For my basic understanding of New Age religion, I must refer thereader elsewhere (Hanegraaff, 1996, 1998a). Since most studies of New Age

had been written from a sociological perspective, I decided to concentrateon aspects which tend to be neglected in that literature. On the basis of arepresentative selection of written primary sources, I analyzed the funda-mental ideas of New Age religion and interpreted these from a historicalperspective. I concluded that New Age religion can be defined as a form ofsecularized esotericism: it is rooted in so-called western esoteric tradi-tions which can be traced back to the early Renaissance, but whichunderwent a thorough process of secularization during the 19th century.The new phenomenon of a secularized esotericism is best referred to as

occultism; it had come to full development by the beginning of the 20thcentury and was eventually adopted by the New Age movement as itemerged during the 1970s. In the present article I would like to furtherdevelop this distinction between secularized esotericism on the one hand (aphenomenon belonging primarily to the history of ideas, and which hademerged during the 19th century), and the New Age movement on the other(a social phenomenon, which has emerged during the 1970s and which hasadopted and further developed a secularized esoteric belief system).

Religion, Religions, and Spiritualities

My discussion of New Age as a form of secular religion presupposes amore general theory of religion, which I have developed in some detailelsewhere (Hanegraaff, 1999a). I define religion in terms of a criticalreformulation of the analysis proposed by Clifford Geertz in 1966:1

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Religion = any symbolic system which influences human action by providing possibil-ities for ritually maintaining contact between the everyday world and a more generalmeta-empirical framework of meaning.

Under the terms of this definition, New Age evidently qualifies as religion;but this does not by any means imply that it is a religion. The class ofreligions (sing.: a religion) can be defined as a subcategory of the generalclass of religion; this subcategory is characterized by the fact that thesymbolic system in question is represented by a social institution.

A religion = any symbolic system, embodied in a social institution, which influenceshuman action by providing possibilities for ritually maintaining contact between theeveryday world and a more general meta-empirical framework of meaning.

In other words: religion may (and frequently does) manifest itself in theform of religions, but need not necessarily do so. For example, the DutchReformed Church is religion as well as a religion; the New Age movement,however, qualifies as religion but not as a religion. But of course nothingprevents a group of New Agers to organize themselves in some sort ofinstitutional framework. The result will then be a New Age religion: theequivalent of what is often referred to as a New Age cult.

Religion may also manifest as what I propose to refer to as a spiritual-ity:

A spirituality = any human practice which maintains contact between the everydayworld and a more general meta-empirical framework of meaning by way of theindividual manipulation2 of symbolic systems.

This concept of a spirituality (plur.: spiritualities) is basic to my inter-pretation of New Age, but in order to elucidate the different forms it cantake, I will first develop my understanding of religion in slightly moredetail.

Collective Symbolism: Religious and Non-religious

Current theories of symbolism and the neighboring domain of myth show agreat complexity, but I will here bypass these discussions and restrict myselfto a very basic observation. So much has been written about symbol andmyth that one may easily forget that symbols are imagesjust as myths arestories. And reversely: not only images, but stories as well, may function assymbols in the human imagination. Applied to the study of religions,symbols and myths can therefore be discussed quite simply as images andstories which have an important function in a certain religious context. They

can have such importance because their meaning is not restricted to theliteral level. The Christian cross is more than two pieces of wood puttogether; the life of Jesus is more than a biography. But, as will be seen, evenhighly abstract discursive or scientific propositions normally do not get ahold over the popular imagination, unless they are capable of being graspedas images.

Hanegraaff: New Age Spiritualities as Secular Religion 147



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A commitment to common symbols is essential to religions generally. Asformulated by Gershom Scholem: one of the main functions of religioussymbols [is] to preserve the vitality of religious experience in a traditional,

conservative milieu (Scholem, 1969: 22). Indeed, an implicit but crucialassumption in my definition of religion is that the doctrines and theologiesof a given religion are ultimately far less important to preserving religiouscommunity in space and over time, than the fundamental images and storiesshared by its members. For example, Christian doctrines and theologieshave undergone tremendous changes and transformations between the firstcenturies and the present day; indeed, the disputes of theologians appearusually to have produced discord and discontinuity rather than maintainingcertainty and safeguarding the cohesion and continuity of Christianity as areligion. But whatever their doctrinal opinions, both theologians and the

community of believers shared a commitment to certain powerful imagesand stories, i.e., to a collective symbolism. Such collective images and storiesmake a powerful moral appeal to the individual, who is stimulated by themto conform to the communitys code of conduct. By providing access to amore general framework of meaning, images and stories are supremelyimportant means of binding the adherents of a religion together in space andover time.

But images and stories may function in a non-religious context as well, ascan be demonstrated by a comparison with the collective symbolism ofcontemporary secular society. The point I just made about the importance

of images and stories for maintaining the cohesion of religions can beapplied equally to the prevailing wordview of secular society. On thepopular level, for example, few people have even a rudimentary under-standing of Cartesian philosophy or Newtonian science; but theyimmediately recognize the image of the world as a machine. Likewise, theproblem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics is a highly technicalsubject involving subtle philosophical problems; but the popular image of asubatomic particle whichparadoxicallyis a wave appears to be so excit-ing to the imagination that one encounters it everywhere on the popular

level, sometimes in highly surprising places. In fact, this latter image hasbecome a supreme symbol of dissent: to invoke it is to criticize the symbol-ism of an earlier, mechanistic worldview. Nevertheless it remains a scientificsymbol, not a religious one. And moving from symbol to myth, we find thesame thing. Few people will be able to explain the differences between thephilosophical, scientific and mystical evolutionary theories of the GermanIdealists, Darwin, Lamarck, Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobindo, IlyaPrigogine, or Ken Wilber, to mention just a few. No matter. What doesmatter is that the biblical story of creation has been replaced, in their minds,by another and better story, which satisfies the imagination of people who

were brought up to respect the ultimate authority of science. And, finally,the power of secular symbolism is not restricted to physics and biology. Inour days, for example, the economic concept of the market appears tohave become a highly important popular symbol; like many religious orquasi-religious symbols, it is able to bind people together in the convictionthat they pursue a common cause, which is for the greater good of humanity




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(Loy, 1997). In order to have that conviction, they need not understand theeconomic theories involved.

Such is the stuff of the collective symbolism of contemporary secular

society. My point is that contemporary society is not based upon scienceand rationality any more than pre-Enlightenment Christianity was basedupon Christian theology. It is not science but popular mythologies ofscience which provide society with its basic collective symbolism.

Spiritualities: With or Without a Religious Foundation

Now, within any symbolic systemreligious or non-religiousspiritualities may appear, and indeed, inevitably do appear. This is quite

simply because people may interpret the collective symbolism of a religionin individual ways, but may do the same with non-religious symbolicsystems. In traditional pre-secular contexts, such spiritualities do notconsistof a strictly private symbolism and can not be seen as examples of the typeof religious individualism referred to by Durkheim. They can be correctlycharacterized, however, as private interpretations of collective religioussymbolism.

This distinction is essential, as will be seen. I will demonstrate it by twoexamples. One characteristic case of a private interpretation of collectivereligious symbolism, leading to a spirituality rooted in a religion, would be

the theosophical system developed by the 17th century mystic JacobBoehme. Boehme earned his living as a cobbler in Grlitz, a small town onthe present border between Germany and Poland. Tormented by questionsabout the origin of evil and suffering in the world, he finally experienced aninterior illumination which changed his life. He describes how God per-mitted him a momentary gaze into the innermost center of nature, thusenabling him to perceive all earthly things in the light of the divine mystery:the mystery of Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, divine Love and divineWrath, and the reconciliation of these opposites by Christ. Boehme would

devote the rest of his life to a continuing attempt to explain his interiorexperience in human language, and develop the implications of his vision.His writings are the work of a visionary genius, and were to become thefoundation of a rich spiritual tradition.

Boehmian theosophy is a characteristic manifestation of the complex oftraditions referred to under the general label of western esotericism(p. 146). Now, it is evident that this perspective belongs to the domain ofreligion in terms of my definition. Moreover (in spite of his problems witha local minister who considered him a heretic), Boehmes esoteric teachingsare undoubtedly rooted in a religion: Christianity as such, and the Lutheran-

ism of his time in particular. But we are evidently dealing here with aspirituality as well. Boehmes work is the product of an individualmanipulation of the various symbolic systems he had at his disposal:Christian symbolism in general, the more recent symbolism of Lutheranismin particular, mystical traditions in the line of Eckhart and Tauler, thenature-philosophical and esoteric symbolism of alchemy, and the teachings




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of Paracelsus. Using elements of these various symbolic systems, he createda new synthesis: a new way of understanding his native Christian faith. It isnot necessary here to enter into the historical backgrounds of the traditions

just mentioned; what concerns me here is Jacob Boehmes work as anexample ofa spirituality rooted in (the collective symbolism of) a religion.Now let us compare this first example of a spirituality with a second one,

characteristic of New Age religion. I have intentionally chosen an examplewhich displays certain similarities with Boehme, in order to make thedifferences stand out all the more clearly. On 9 September, 1963, the NewYork science fiction writer Jane Roberts was suddenly hit by a powerfulpsychic experience. She was quietly sitting at the table when, as shedescribes, between one normal minute and the next, a fantastic avalancheof radical new ideas burst into my head with tremendous force, as if my skull

were some sort of receiving station, turned up to unbearable volume(Roberts, 1970: 11). The experience included not only ideas, but alsoextreme and unusual physical sensations and a sort of psychedelic experi-ence of travelling through many dimensions. When she regained hercomposure, she found herself furiously scribbling down the words and ideasthat had flashed through her head. In an attempt to find out what hadhappened to her, she and her husband started experimenting with spiritistictechniques. After some time, they contacted a spirit, who eventually beganto communicate directly through Jane Roberts body. In this way, shedeveloped into a so-called trance medium or channel for a higher entity

who referred to himself as Seth. Seths messages were published and haveexerted an enormous (and still underestimated) influence on the develop-ment of the New Age movement. The core of his teaching is that we allcreate our own reality, in a process of spiritual evolution through count-less existences on this planet as well as in an infinity of other dimensions.Few New Agers realize how many of the beliefs which they take for grantedin their daily lives have their historical origin in Seths messages.

The intriguing phenomenon of channeling is not my subject here. I wouldmerely like to emphasize how strongly Seths messages appeared to fit

within Jane Roberts personal frame of reference. As may be checked by acomparison with the books she published under her own name, this frame ofreference consisted of a highly eclectic combination of religious and non-religious symbolic systems. They included the Romantic cosmology andevolutionism of the American Transcendentalists, the positive thinking ofthe New Thought movement and related traditions usually referred to as theAmerican Metaphysical Movements, spiritualism and parapsychology inthe wake of magnetism and American mesmerism; but also science fictionliterature, popular science, and popular psychology. From the elements ofall these symbolic systems, Jane Robertsor Sethcreated a new, original

synthesis.The Seth teachings evidently qualify as religion in terms of my defini-

tion. But they do not constitute a religion, nor are they rooted in a religion,as was the case with Boehme. They are clearly an example of a spirituality:the product of individual manipulation of available symbolic systems (reli-gious as well as non-religious). This spirituality fulfilled the function which




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it still fulfills in the context of the New Age movement today: it influenceshuman action by providing the possibility for maintaining contact betweenthe everyday world and a more general meta-empirical framework of

meaning. It is therefore undoubtedly religion.I should add one important note. In both the examples just given, we aredealing with the spectacular product of unquestionably gifted individuals,whose published writings made such an impression on readers that theirspirituality (or elements of it) was adopted by others and took up a life of itsown. But when talking of spiritualities we should definitely not thinkmerely or even mainly of the comparatively rare phenomenon of religiousvirtuosi. In principle we are dealing with an everyday phenomenon: everyperson who gives an individual twist to existing religious symbols (be it onlyin a minimal sense) is already engaged in the practice of creating his or her

own spirituality. In this sense, each existing religion generates multiplespiritualities as a matter of course; and it is only the more spectacular caseswhich sometimes become the basis for a new spiritual tradition.

Spiritualities and religions might be roughly characterized as theindividual and institutional poles within the general domain of religion. Areligion without spiritualities is impossible to imagine. But, as will be seen,the reversea spirituality without a religionis quite possible in principle.Spiritualities can emerge on the basis of an existing religion, but they canvery well do without. New Age is the example par excellence of this latterpossibility: a complex of spiritualities which emerges on the foundation of a

pluralistic secular society.

Secularization and the Autonomization of Spiritualities

In terms of the above discussion, secularization cannot be interpreted as aprocess in which the social importance of religion, or even religion as such,declines or vanishes altogether. But secularization can very well be under-stood as a thorough transformation of religion under the impact of historical

and social processes, particularly since the 18th century. From a strictlyempirical and historical perspective, secularization can be defined as thewhole of historical developments in western society, as a result of which theChristian religion has lost its central position as the foundational collectivesymbolism of western culture, and has been reduced to merely one amongseveral religious institutions within a culture which is no longer grounded ina religious system of symbols.

One might argue that, from the perspective of the history of religions,such a process of transformation is nothing new. No religion has ever beenstationary; all religions have always been in a process of change and

transformation, and the process of secularization might therefore be seen asmerely another phase in the history of religions in western societies.However, I believe that there is reason to consider the western process ofsecularization as a historically unique and unprecedented example of such atransformation: a deeper and more fundamental caesura than any otherchange known to us from the history of religions. The complicated histor-




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ical, social and political causes of this transformation are the subject of anabundant historical and sociological literature, which we do not need to gointo here.

I am concerned mainly with defining in which respects contemporarywestern society is different from all other societies before the period of theEnlightenment. As far as we know, never before has there existed a humansociety, the common culture of which was not religious: i.e., a society whosecommonly-shared collective symbolism was not of such a nature as toprovide a framework for ritually maintaining contact with a more general,meta-empirical framework of meaning. Precisely such a non-religious com-plex of symbolic systems, however, is fundamental for contemporarysociety. In this sense, secular western society can be regarded as a historicalanomaly, which breaks in an unprecedented way with previous human

cultures. The distinction between religions and spiritualities can be used asan analytic instrument to get a grip on the secularization process in thissense. Secularization by no means implies that religion declines or thatreligions die out; but it does mean that religion is transformed in a crucialway. The essence of this transformation is that religions are faced withincreasing competition by spiritualities which are themselves no longerbased upon and embedded in an existing religion but become whollyautonomous. This process of autonomization may be described as theemergence ofsecular spiritualities based upon aprivate symbolism in a strictsense.3

This is a crucial characteristic of New Age religion: it consists of acomplex of spiritualities which are no longer embedded in any religionaswas the case with all spiritualities in the pastbut directly in secular cultureitself. All manifestations of New Age religion, without exception, are basedupon what I called an individual manipulation of existing symbolic sys-tems. In this way, new syntheses are continually being created, whichprovide exactly what religion has always provided: the possibility for rituallymaintaining contact with a more general meta-empirical framework ofmeaning, in terms of which people give meaning to their experiences in daily

life.Spiritualities in a traditional religious context did not need to start frompoint zero. The religion in which they were embedded already served toprovide meaning; the primary function of new spiritualities was to clarifyand further develop existing religious symbolism, so as to fine-tune it tothe specific needs of the person in question. Hence, Jacob Boehme certainlydid not develop his esoteric system because he doubted that Christ hadsaved humanity from sin; he did it in order to better understand what thatmeant.

New Age spiritualities, in contrast, do not grow on the soil of an existing

religion. They are based upon the individual manipulation of religious aswell as non-religious symbolic systems; and this manipulation is undertakenin order to fill these symbols with new religious meaning. As for existingreligious symbolic systems, New Age spiritualities generally concentrate onwhatever is notassociated too closely with the traditional churches and theirtheologies. Hence their preference for alternative traditions, from gnosti-




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cism and western esotericism in their own culture to various religioustraditions from other cultures. As for their use of a non-religious symbolicsystem: by far the most important area is that of the popular mythologies of

science to which I made reference above. In countless ways, New Agersgive a spiritual twist to the symbolism of quantum mechanics and relativitytheory (Hanegraaff, 1996: Chs 3, 6), various psychological schools (Hane-graaff, 1996: Chs 8, 15), sociological theories (Hanegraaff, 1996: Ch. 5), andso on. The common basis of New Age religion is therefore no longer thesymbolic system of an existing religion, but a large number of symbolicsystems of various provenance, bits and pieces of which are constantly beingrecycled by the popular media. Since there is no longer a commonly sharedsource of authority which indicates how all this information fits togetherwithin a religious framework, one is left to ones own devices to figure out

the religious implications of available symbolic systems. At most, one mayfind assistance in a continuing stream of popular literature (which, however,does not follow one clear direction either).

As such, New Age is the manifestation par excellence of the seculariza-tion of religion: religion becomes solely a matter of individual choice, anddetaches itself from religious institutions, i.e. from exclusive commitment tospecific religions. Even more: what is considered to be real religionaccording to a New Age perspective is hardly compatible (if at all) withreligious institutions. Here, as in many other things, New Age religionreveals itself as a characteristic heir of the Enlightenment. A consistent

refrain in New Age sources is that people have finally managed to freethemselves from the tyranny of religious power structures; religions arepictured as being based upon blind acceptance of dogmas, by which thefaithful have been prevented from discovering the divinity that resideswithin themselves.

The Symbolism of the Self and the Myth of its Evolution

Whereas traditional spiritualities consisted of private interpretations ofexisting collective religious symbolisms, New Age religion exemplifies thefar more radical phenomenon ofprivate symbolism. Only this latter phe-nomenon catches the essence of the new type of religious individualismforeseen by Emile Durkheim at the beginning of the 20th century.

Now, in what respect does this view of New Age religion differ fromexisting ones? We have seen that New Age religion initially looks like astrange mixture of secular and non-secular elements. One certainly findshere a mythology of science, but defended for what seem to be essentiallyreligious reasons; and one finds various elements of traditional religious

symbolism, but presented as compatible with and actually validated byavant-garde science. Accordingly, some have perceived New Age religionas a direct product of contemporary secular society, while others havedescribed it as an attempt to revive pre-secular religious traditions.4 Theformer option has been especially popular among sociologists, who havetended to pay little attention to the historical roots of New Age religion in




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western religious traditions. The latter option is popular among critics whodenounce New Age as a regression to pre-scientific obscurantism, as well asamong defenders who see it as a revival of traditional wisdom; both of these

perspectives have tended to neglect the modernity of New Age. From ahistorians point of view, both interpretations are one-sided: the specificmodernity of New Age religion can only be understood by situating thephenomenon in a historical framework. It seems to me that a bridge can bebuilt between existing disciplinary approaches by recognizing that New Agereligion is based neither on the collective symbolism of one religioustradition or another, nor on the collective symbolism of secular societywhich I referred to as a mythology of science, but on the characteristicallymodernist tendency to move from collective symbolism to an eclecticprivate symbolism.

The key to this phenomenon is the religious individualism and eclecticismwhich is so fundamental to contemporary culture as a whole. New Agers donot want to be told by others what they are supposed to believe. In principle,they take this attitude not only to religious ideas, but to scientific ones aswell. Thus, they indignantly reject the so-called Cartesian/Newtonian para-digm, because this materialist and mechanicist conception of the universe isexperienced by them as a stifling dogma which limits spiritual freedom. Butthis sensitivity to overtly dogmatic authority hardly protects them fromsubmitting to the more subtle hegemonic claims implicit in the mythologyof science as such. Accordingly, New Agers typically fight old science with

new science, arguing that quantum mechanics proves the truth of a newparadigm which has room both for science and spirituality. It is highlyuncharacteristic for New Age religion to suggest that science as such mighthave its limitations, which might make it simply irrelevant to the domain ofthe sacred.5 Specific mythologies of science (or paradigms) may be acceptedor rejected in truly eclectic fashion, but the basic assumption that spiritualtruth must be in harmony with scientific truth is hardly ever questioned. Weare thus led to an important observation: there is no type of collectivesymbolismbe it religious or scientificwhich New Agers as a group

accept as authoritative; but the mythical authority of science as such isnevertheless strongly in evidence.Now, the opposition of New Age against religious as well as scientific

authoritarianism and dogmatism still remains on the level of reasoning; butI have been emphasizing that the coherence of a religious perspective isultimately based on shared images and stories rather than on reasonedbeliefs. What, then, are the fundamental common images and stories basicto the many private symbolic worlds found in New Age religion? For it istrue that, in spite of all their individualistic emphasis, these myriad manifes-tations of private symbolism do have something in common. The solution to

what looks like a paradox is almost predictable (at least once one knows theanswer). Try to imagine a central, unifying symbolism that should be properto a secular religiosity based on religious individualism. What else could itbe, than a symbolism circling around that most individualistic of all con-cepts: the Self? Indeed, the Self can be seen as the symbolic center of NewAge religion (cf. Heelas, 1996); and its most universal story or myth




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describes how this Self undergoes a process of spiritual evolution. Althoughthe unifying symbolism of the Self is basic to all forms of New Age religion,it cannot be regarded as a collective symbolism. We saw that collective

symbolism typically binds the adherents of a religious perspective togetheras a community. The symbolism of the Self is perhaps a unique phenom-enon, because whenever it is seriously made into the core and center of areligious movement, it practically prevents this movement from functioningas a religious collectivity! And this observation can be reversed as well: onlya movement which regards religious individualism and freedom as essentialwill adopt the Self as its central symbol. It can therefore be no surprise thatthe so-called New Age movement still shows no signs of becoming areligion (in the sense of my definition) but remains an informal net-work.

In developing a wide array of private symbolic worlds centering aroundthe symbolism of the Self and the mythology of its evolution, New Agereligion makes eclectic use of whatever materials it can find. But thematerials are not selected at random: they have to be in accordance with anunderlying motivation. As I have argued elsewhere, the idea structure ofNew Age religion is based upon a deep-seated culture criticism, whichrejects various forms of dualism and reductionism and seeks to developholistic alternatives. A similar pattern of culture criticism is found in someother movements, such as the womens movement and the ecology move-ment. The New Age movement differs from them because its culture

criticism is expressed in terms of a secularized esotericism. For the completeargument I have to refer the reader elsewhere (Hanegraaff, 1996: Ch. 16);here I merely wish to point out that the centrality to western esotericism ofgnosisknowledge of the Self interpreted as knowledge of Godappearsto provide a perfect foundation for the individualistic symbolism of the Selfin New Age religion.

I will illustrate the New Age symbolism of the Self with two examples.The first is taken from the Seth messages already referred to. In an earlybook, Seth describes how the universe sprang forth from God, who is

referred to as All That Is. He describes how, in a primary state of non-being, prior to all manifestation, all possible realities existed as unconsciousdreams in the mind of All That Is. These dreams, as Seth says, yearned tobe actual:

All That Is saw, then, an infinity of probable, conscious individuals, and foresaw allpossible developments, but they were locked within It until It found the means . . .

The means, then, came to it. It must release the creatures and probabilities from Itsdream. To do so would give them actuality. However, it also meant losing a portion ofIts own consciousness . . . All That Is had to let go . . . With love and longing It let go thatportion of Itself, and they were free. The psychic energy exploded in a flash of creation.

[All That Is] found the way to burst forth in freedom, through expression, and in sodoing gave existence to individualized consciousness. Therefore is It rightfully jubilant.Yet all individuals remember their source, and now dream of All That Is as All That Isonce dreamed of them. And they yearn toward that immense source . . . and yearn to setIt free and give It actuality through their own creations. (Roberts, 1970: 264268)

There are gnostic, neoplatonic, kabbalistic and theosophical echoes in this




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creation myth; but it also provides a metaphysical background to theextremely common New Age belief that we all create our own reality. Eachconscious individual, according to Seth, is the manifestation of a creative

Soul or Higher Self. And each Self is a spark of the great universal Selfcalled All That Is (who, by the way, may in turn be a spark of an even greaterSelf). Thus, the Self is modeled on God; and the essence of both God andthe Self is limitless creative expansion. The result is a world-affirmingperspective in which each Self continually creates its own reality asnaturally as breathing. Thus, according to Seth, my own Higher Self is atthis very moment creating a reality in which IWouter Hanegraaffamwriting an article on the New Age movement. And each of my readers livesin his or her self-created reality, which happens to be one in which he or sheis reading an article on New Age. Now, it is basic to New Age religion that

each self-created reality functions as a learning experience. Our limitedpersonalities have become alienated from their own Higher Selves; and sothey come to believe that the worlds created by their own Higher Selves arethe only real world. Many of these self-created learning experiences aremore or less painful and involve a degree of suffering (including, no doubt,the ordeal of working ones way through articles in academic journals!), forit is only in this way that souls can evolve and develop spiritually. The morethey evolve, the more satisfying will be the realities they create for them-selves.

This is the basic outline of New Age symbolism of the Self and its

evolution. The logic of this perspective inevitably leads to solipsism: eachprivate Self quite literally lives enclosed in its own private symbolic world.The actress Shirley MacLaine, who became perhaps the most prominentrepresentative of New Age in the 1980s, managed to scandalize even manyof her New Age friends by openly drawing precisely this conclusion:

. . . since I realized I created my own reality in every way, I must therefore admit thatIwas the only person alive in my universe . . . And human beings feeling pain, terror,depression, panic, and so forth, were really only aspects of pain, terror, depression,panic, and so on, in me. If they were all characters in my reality, my dream, then of

course they were only reflections of myself . . .Now, that truth can be very humorous. I could legitimately say that I created theStatue of Liberty, chocolate chip cookies, the Beatles, terrorism, and the Vietnam war. . . I knewIhad created the reality of the evening news at night. It was in my reality. Butwhether anyone else was experiencing the news separately from me was unclear,because they existed in my reality too. And if they reacted to world events, then I wascreating them to react so I would have something to interact with, thereby enablingmyself to know me better . . .

If what I was proposing was true, would it also be true that I did nothing for others,everything for myself? And the answer was, essentially, yes. If I fed a starving child, andwas honest about my motivation, I would have to say I did it for myself, because it mademe feel better . . . I was beginning to see that we each did whatever we did purely for self,

and that was as it should be. (MacLaine, 1987: 171173)

Shirley MacLaine indeed takes private symbolism to its logical conclusion.This permits me to briefly touch upon the question of the ethical implica-tions of New Age religion. In order to understand the momentous shift fromcollective symbolism to the emergence of a private symbolism, and the new




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type of religion which has emerged from it, this aspect is of central impor-tance. I noted above (p. 148) that collective images and stories make apowerful moral appeal to the individual, who is stimulated by them to

conform to the communitys code of conduct. What, then, might happen tomorality when collective symbolism gives way to private symbolism?I will not attempt to tackle all the ramifications and implications of this

question in the space of this brief article. The most important aspects of itmay be brought out by concentrating on the contrast between the privatesymbolism of New Age, on the one hand, and the private interpretations ofcollective symbolism found in western esoteric traditions, on the other. Iwas originally inspired to explore the differences between collective andprivate symbolism by a casual remark made by Gershom Scholem in aninterview, which might be put side by side with Durkheims remarks in the

first chapter ofThe Elementary Forms. As I have argued elsewhere (Hane-graaff, 1999b), Scholems remarks about Jewish esotericism apply equally toits Christian parallels:

Modern man lives in a private world of his own, enclosed within himself, and modernsymbolism is not objective: it is private; it does not obligate. The symbols of thekabbalists, on the other hand, did not speak only to the private individualtheydisplayed a symbolic dimension to the whole world. (Scholem, 1976: 48)

The specifically mystical symbolism which Scholem saw as basic to

traditional esotericism was based upon the collective symbolism of Judaism;it had its center in a divine mystery which radically transcended humanunderstanding but could nevertheless be experienced in the created world.With respect to morality, traditional mystical symbolism clearly obligates;it reflects the understanding that human actions in the world must find theirjustification (or not find it) according to a normative system which is divinelyinstituted and may therefore not be fully accessible to human under-standing, but the existence of which is not in any doubt. New Age, incontrast, has its logical center not in God but in the Self of each individual;and in principle there is no limit to the potential of the Self to unlock even

the deepest mysteries of the universe. With respect to morality, New Agersclaim that suffering exists for the purpose of spiritual education, but theredoes not exist such a thing as evil. This basic message is repeated over andover again: evil is an illusion, the belief in which merely reflects spiritualignorance (Hanegraaff, 1996: Ch. 10). Under such conditions, a concept ofmoral obligation to anything but ones own spiritual developmentbecomes impossible ex principio. The implications are shocking if formu-lated in all clarity. Even acts of the most horrific kind, such as the rape andmurder of a child, are not evil or wrong: in essence, they constitute alearning experience for both parties, which their higher Selves have cre-ated together and in mutual collaboration. The victim participates in thecrime no less than the criminal; and even the bereaved parents shouldeventually learn to see the murder of their child as a learning experiencechosen by their own higher Selves.




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Conclusion

In the end, the foundational myth of New Age religionunlimited spiritualevolution in which the Self learns from its experiences in many self-created

realitiesmust be recognized as deeply rationalistic.6 On the crucialassumption that evil does not exist and whatever is, is right, this spiritualevolutionism actually succeeds in providing a consistent, reasonable andconclusive explanation of suffering. The unquestionable explanatorystrength of this foundational New Age myth is undoubtedly a main reasonfor its attraction for many contemporary people who wish to make sense ofhuman existence. The hard core of fully convinced believers in its truth areenabled to consider themselves part of an invisible community of like-minded individuals, as distinct from the mass of human beings who have not

yet discovered the true meaning of existence. Those who are not convinced,and must therefore consider themselves as belonging to the latter category,may perhaps be permitted to wonder whether the proclaimed arrival of theNew Age would leave any room for common moral values.

NOTES

This research was supported by the Foundation for Research in the Field ofPhilosophy and Theology in the Netherlands, which is subsidized by The Nether-lands Organization for the Advancement of Research (NWO).

1.

At first sight my reformulation may look rather different from Geertzs famousfive-part definition of religion; for a detailed account, see Hanegraaff (1999a,forthcoming).

2. My use of the term manipulation might create misunderstandings. I do notintend to make a statement about the extent to which an individual is capable ofdissociating or distancing him/herself from the various symbolic systems present inhis/her cultural and social context. I defend neither an extreme view of the autono-mous subject which is supposedly at full liberty to make its choices among thevarious symbolic systems which are made available to it in the religious super-market of contemporary western society, nor a (no less extreme) view according towhich this so-called subject is merely an exponent of supra-personal collective

forces. Symbolic systems are products of human beings, who are in turn products ofsymbolic systems. The power of existing social structures is no less crucial than thecapacity of individuals to make individual choices. In this context, the term manip-ulation means merely the empirical fact that people come up with personal andcreative interpretations of existing symbolic systems. The question of where pre-cisely lie the limits of their freedom of interpretation can be disregarded here.

3. Obviously, that religion is becoming more and more a matter for individualchoice is hardly an original statement. I merely refer to Peter Berger (1980) for thefundamental point that, in contemporary western society, religion has become asubject of individual choice rather than a matter-of-course dimension of the symbol-ism available in everyday life, woven in the fabric of the common culture. We choosewhether to become a member of a religion or, if we are raised in one, whether toremain a member. Such a religion may be a Christian church, but it may equally wellbe one of the innumerable new religious movements which flourish in secularsociety. And of course any existing (large or small) religion may spawn newspiritualities, some of which may in turn give rise to yet other new religions. This ishow all religion functions in a pluralist secular society.




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4. For a more detailed discussion, see Hanegraaff (1996: 406410).5. But there are occasional exceptions such as Ken Wilber, discussed in Hane-

graaff (1996: 176181).6. See my comparison between New Age and the Enlightenment perspective

represented by the character of Settembrini in Thomas Manns Magic Mountain(Hanegraaff, 1998b). The relation between New Age and the Enlightenment isdiscussed in Hanegraaff (1996: Ch. 15, Section 1, and passim).

REFERENCES

Berger, P. (1980) The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of ReligiousAffirmation. London: Collins.

Durkheim, E. (1995) The Elementary Forms of Religious Life, trans. Karen E.

Fields. New York: The Free Press.Firth, R. (1973) Symbols: Public and Private. London: Allen & Unwin.Geertz, C. (1966) Religion as a Cultural System, in Michael Banton (ed.)

Anthropological Approaches to the Study of Religion. London: Tavistock Pub-lications.

Hanegraaff, W.J. (1996) New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in theMirror of Secular Thought. Leiden: E.J. Brill (US edn, Albany: SUNY Press,1998).

Hanegraaff, W.J. (1998a) The New Age Movement and the Esoteric Tradition, inR. van den Broek and W.J. Hanegraaff (eds) Gnosis and Hermeticism from

Antiquity to Modern Times. Albany: SUNY Press.

Hanegraaff, W.J. (1998b) Reflections on New Age and the Secularization ofNature, in J. Pearson, R. Roberts and G. Samuel (eds) Nature Religion Today:The Pagan Alternative in the Modern World. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UniversityPress.

Hanegraaff, W.J. (1999a) Defining Religion in Spite of History, in J.G. Platvoetand A.L. Molendijk (eds) The Pragmatics of Defining Religion: Contexts,Concepts & Contests. Leiden: E.J. Brill, forthcoming.

Hanegraaff, W.J. (1999b) La fin de lsotrisme? Le mouvement du nouvel age etla question du symbolisme religieux, in Symboles et Mythes dans les mouvementsinitiatiques et sotriques (17me20me sicle). Paris: Arch Edit/La Table

dEmeraude.Heelas, P. (1996) The New Age Movement: The Celebration of the Self and theSacralization of Modernity. Oxford: Blackwell.

Loy, D.R. (1997) The Religion of the Market,Journal of the American Academyof Religion 65(2): 275-290.

MacLaine, S. (1987)Its All in the Playing. Toronto: Bantam Books.Roberts, J. (1970) The Seth Material. Toronto: Bantam Books.Scholem, G. (1969) Religious Authority and Mysticism, in G. Scholem, On the

Kabbalah and its Symbolism. New York: Schocken.Scholem, G. (1976) With Gershom Scholem: An Interview, in G. Scholem, On

Jews and Judaism in Crisis: Selected Essays , ed. Werner J. Dannhauser. New York:

Schocken.




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Wouter J. HANEGRAAFF is Research Fellow in the Department forthe Study of Religions at the University of Utrecht, The Netherlands.He specializes in the history of so-called western esoteric traditionsfrom the period of the Renaissance up to the present. He is the author

ofNew Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror ofSecular Thought(E.J. Brill, 1996/SUNY Press, 1998) and is at presentworking on a book on conceptualizations of magic. ADDRESS: Oude-zijds Armsteeg 4-c, NL-1012 GP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. [email:[email protected]]


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