Possession, Power and the New Age

* Book: Possession, Power and the New Age: Ambiguities of Authority in Neoliberal Societies. Matthew Wood.

Description

Vanessa Fisher:

"In his book ... scholar Matthew Wood defines the New Age as a diverse collection of practices, beliefs and ideologies that center around the primacy of the individual and self-authority.

Wood writes:

- “The New Age is seen as a religion—or, more usually, a spirituality—in which people choose what to do, and how to do it, on the basis of their own authority, rather than being directed by authorities external to them. External authorities and traditions are utilized, often through marketplace consumption, merely as resources from which the self draws…The New Age extols the self, its fulfillments and expression, such that these authorities act to encourage and facilitate people’s expressions of their own inner authority.”

Of course trying to pin down or pigeonhole a precise definition of the Human Potential Movement, or its many New Age offshoots, is not an easy task, as their manifestations are as diverse and subtle as is the reach of their underlying values into nearly all aspects of North American life—from psychology, to spirituality, to business, education and even to politics, (as we will see).

The most important thing to note at this point is that the Human Potential Movement grew out of a much larger shift that was happening since the 19th century, and that was the increasing psychologization of society.

From the time of Freud onward, psychology became the dominant paradigm in Euro-American culture, slowly shifting people’s focus of attention inward, towards a newly visioned self.

This shift towards psychology and a new conception of the individual self also supported the increasing secularisation of society and laid the ground for people to eventually begin searching for a God within themselves, rather than through external authorities or religious institutions." (http://www.elephantjournal.com/2013/12/spirit-inc-the-politics-of-modern-spirituality-the-stalled-revolution-vanessa-d-fisher/)