Reading and writing

On this moment, at the end of my third week of writing on my thesis, the rhythm of working on it has settled in pretty steady. It's resemblance to first grade is way too high - reading and writing (just maths are missing...). But I still think that the topic, New Age, is fascinating. As a phenomenon, because if you realize that people, apparently out of the blue, start believing in stuff like astrology, tarot, the healing powers of rocks and in spirits, in this for the rest reasonably scientific and rational age, that's amazing. But also because New Age uses common methods from psychology and coats them with a much more attractive layer, and this seems to work.

As for my research, this fascinated me; the idea is that you've got your life in your own hands, that you create your own problems and can therefor only solve them yourself, is nothing new under the sun and every first therapist can point out the cause of destructive patterns in your life. The funny thing about New Age is that is, despite the fact that it brings very little 'New', still brings this message in a way that is attractive to people. Apparently it's not enough if a studied psychiatrist tells us we'll probably be a happier person if we pay a bit more attention to our feelings and a bit less to what our mom used to say when we were a child. Much rather we'd hear that we should find our Inner Voice, which represents God inside us, and that we should put our ego's aside. This way we can deal with the past, live in the Now and follow our heart.

Don't get me wrong, there's nothing wrong with that, if this works better for a person and therefor gives them a happier life, then that's the only important fact. Still I am very curious as to what drives people, what is the function of New Age to them and why they can get it there and nowhere else? Why does everything need a sauce of spirituality? If you flip through Psychology Magazine, you can find up to 90% of the underlying wisdom in there, with proof in the shape of brain research and all. Or, something that has worked for us the last 2000 years, what's wrong with monotheism? So I'm curious to find out how this works for people... If I find out more I'll report it here!

Ps. I realise that the psychology and healing yourself are only 1 aspect of New Age, but it's just an example :)

Pps. The blog post in Dutch has an extensive piece on what I consider to be New Age, but it's too much work for me to translate for the few readers. If you are interested, I'll heartily recommend the books of Paul Heelas (and Heelas & Woodhead).