Buddhism, based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama

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26. Most religions have a central obligatory unifying belief, usually their god-concept.

Last edited Tue Jan 24, 2012, 11:55 PM - Edit history (4)

I don't see such an obligatory unifying belief (one that must shared by all adherents) in New Age. There are some common themes, like manifestation or angels, but as you say they're not held as truth by all practitioners. I regard the things you mention - tarot cards, astrology, meditation, yoga - as spiritual technologies. They're like communion or confession or baptism in the Christian religion, expressions of the belief system rather than its core defining elements.

To use somewhat kinder terminology than in my previous post, New Age is an extreme example of syncretism, especially when you throw in things like psychedelics, biodynamic farming, transpersonal psychology and channeled writings like the cosmology of Seth Speaks.

As far as I can tell after having been close to it for a few years, the only feature of New Age spirituality that's shared by everyone who self-identifies as such is the idea that the ordinary material world isn't all there is. That puts New Age ideas into opposition with modern materialism, but isn't much of a differentiator from other, more traditional religions - all religions (not to mention some slightly more "respectable" cosmologies and philosophies) share that idea.

My definition of spirituality is something like, "The feeling one gets from direct, unmediated contact with non-ordinary dimensions of reality." It shares that quality with mysticism, though most people understand mysticism to be that experience within the context of a more traditional god-centered religion.