Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
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About author:
Nathaniel is a pen name of Wojciech Usarzewicz, who is a Reiki
Master Teacher and a spiritual practitioner born and living in
Poland, Europe. When people ask him about his pen name, he
says "Nathan" is a way easier to pronounce than his real name;
thus he publishes his books under "Nathaniel" name.
He's an author of numerous books on spiritual subjects: psychic
development, Norse runes, New Age, clairvoyance and Reiki.
He's not afraid of controversial subjects, because he believes in
old latin proverb, "Homo sum...". He lives in Poland, where he
teaches Reiki, as well as he practices other spiritual arts. On the
path of his own spiritual growth, he had the opportunity to learn
from Buddhist and Taoist masters, witches, shamans and many
Reiki masters.
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Table of Contents
About author:
Preface
Before Modern Age
XVIII Century
XIX Century
First half of the XX century
The Second Half of the XX century
The 60s
70s
The 80s
The 90s
The XXI Century, So Far
Summary
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5
6
6
7
10
15
17
18
19
21
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Preface
I decided to share with with you the history of New Age. Of
course, it's just a short version a detailed history would take
hundreds of pages to describe.
Today, we may say that New Age is already over 150 years old.
Please, enjoy this outline of New Age movement history. It's
worth to learn it in order to figure out what originates from
what. It helps to define whether modern practices are worth of
your time or not :). Let's begin.
Let us start with setting the beginning of New Age movement
somewhere in the XVIII century. This is the great time of
Industrial Revolution. As you can see, not only the industry and
economy went through revolution the great revolution in spirit
also begun back there, as it seems.
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XVIII Century
XIX Century
earlier. The New Thought used to evolve and expand the ideas
of Mesmerism and mix them with ideas originating in Hindu
and Buddhist traditions. New Thought believed that physical
matter is merely an illusion, and any illness is created by
thoughts and sick ideas and concepts. Illness was meant to
begin in person's mind, not in person's body. The doctrine of
New Thought include a belief that humanity is divine in its
nature, and that our mind is the only reality. Actually, according
to New Thought, it is the mind that creates physical matter.
Based on these ideas, Quimby created a clinic, in which people
were supposed to be able to heal themselves through healing
their thoughts and ideas.
On the beginning of the XX century, New Thought ideas will
evolve beyond health issues, into other aspects of life. For
example, Napoleon Hill and Wallace Wattles used New Thought
as a base for their concepts of the Law of Attraction, which
later on became known thanks to the movie and book The
Secret.
One of the students of Quimby was named Mary Baker Edda,
who later on created Christian Science Society, which exists
for this day.
In the XIX century, in its 50s, a major person appears on the
scene her name is Helena Blavatsky. She used to say that she
has met a Master1 in 1851 in London. This Master person
was supposed to introduce Blavatsky into the art of Eastern
spirituality. In the coming years, Blavatsky was supposed to
travel to Mexico, Egypt, Canada and Asia, where she was
supposed to learn from shamans and spiritual masters.
In 1864, she supposedly spent few years in Tibet, where she
1 This Master person was never identified by any name, gender, age or
cultural origin.
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e now meet, for the first time, with Alice Bailey and
Krishnamurti. Alice Bailey was a member of the
Theosophical Society. She stated that Krishnamurti, a young
Hindu boy back then was a messiah, an incarnation of Christ.
Bailey stated this in 1906.
Krishnamurti finally neglected this idea and his role as a
messiah in 1926. He broke his ties with the Theosophical
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Society and dissolved the Order of the Star, then creted the
Krishnamurti Foundation of America, which exists for this
day. Notice that some sources suggest that the Order of the Star
was created by Krishnamurti. In anyway, the KfoA focused on
popularizing Hindu mysticism. Krishnamurti described himself
as the antiguru, standing in the opposition of the growing
guruistic movement in America at the time.
The Guru movement in America is responsible for many
concepts popular within New Age: the importance of destroying
ego; the importance of serving your guru-master. The concept of
guru itself was later on used by many sect and cult
movements around the world.
Even earlier, Alice Bailey herself left the Theosophical Society
in 1923 to create her own group, Acane School.
At the beginning of the XX century, starting with 1901, another
great mystic begun his work. His name was Edgar Cayce. He
became famous thanks to this abilility to psychically state
medical diagnosis throught his clairvoyant abilities. Another
skill of his brought him fame, as he used to channel information,
through psychical means, about Atlantis and alternative history
of human civilization. Cayce created an organization called
Association for Research and Englightenment, which exists for
this day. Thanks to Cayce's work, the fame of Atlantis itself
became far stronger. We credit Cayce also for popularizing
interest in general alternative history.
The beginning of the XX century is a witness of another major
event, the end of the Order of the Golden Dawn. Becaue of the
breakdown, some of the Order's members published the Order's
teachings. This events and publications influenced the future
magick movements, and the esoteric community received a
greater popularization of Tarot cards.
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As it turned out, the illustrations of the fairies were cut out from
a small book for children. This is known as The Faires of
Cottingley (or Cottingley Fairies). This is the time when first
scientific societies for parapsychology researched became
popular. This event also influeced the interest in local folklore
from the spiritual and magical point of view, but also influenced
the interest in nature spirits.
A popular researcher among spiritual movement, Carl Gustav
Jung, wrote about the coming of New Age, but it was the exTheosophist, Alice Bailey, who first used the term New Age in
the context of the coming Age of Aquarius. She meant the
introduction of the astrological era, and the described it in her
book, Discipleship in the New Age, published in 1955.
Now, thanks to the invention of a paperback cover, more
books are going to be published.
In 1921, Alfred Watkins defines the idea of Ley Lines, but it
went without notice until 1936. That time, a famous ex-member
of the Order of the Golden Dawn, Dion Fortune, published her
novel, The Goat Foot God in which she suggests that Ley
Lines are esoteric pathways passing through the country (she
meant Great Britain), connecting sacred places. This theory
expanded to the whole world, suggesting the existance of the
global spiritual net, connecting world's places of power togheter.
It's possible that because of Watkins and Fortune, new trends of
New Age were created, inspiring people to study the places of
power and old places of religious cult. Personally, I would
suggest that althought Watkins and Fortune ignited the interest
in places of power and the concept of global spiritual net, this
way of thinking became truly popular only later, thanks to the
revival of pagan beliefs, in its reconstructional and neo-pagan
ways.
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In the 1940s, Gerald Gardner, along with his wife, founds the
Bricket Wood Coven. They begin to spread the practice of
Wicca. In the coming years, Wicca craft will become very
popular, and it will be one of the major factors for the pagan
revival in the second half of the XX century. Yoga is once again
popularized, this time in the United States, but later on, it will be
prosecuted.
The year 1949 is also very important for New Age movement.
This is the first year when the magazine Fate is being
published. The very first issue created by Ray Palmer became
very popular, and the magazine itself is being published for this
day. At the same time, George Adamski publishes his short story
about a journey through space, The Pioneers of Space, which
helped him create another work, Inside the Space Ships,
evolving the ideas of alien civilization within New Age
concepts.
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The 60s
The cultural revolution gives the opportunity to New Age to
become far more organized movement, not just a fade concept.
In the 60s, the Esalen Institute in California is created by
Michael Murphy and Richard Price (1962). Also, The Findhorn
Foundation is set up in 1962 in Findhorn, Scotland. In Findhor,
for this day there is an ecovillage that is considered to be a
British center of the New Age movement, to say the least. At the
same year, the Churge of All Worlds is created.
What's interesting, it's quite possible that it was Findhorn where
the colors were assigned to chakras. The chakras concept in
New Age originates in Hindu tantric tradition of the Shakti cult.
This idea was passed to the West by the Theosophical Society.
Originally, it was deities, not colors, to be assigned to each of
the chakras so that the Shakti followers could easily recognize
the meaning of the chakra. The colors were supposedly assigned
in the West right in the middle of Findhorn New Age
community. Still, it's just a theory.
At last, in 1963 a book is published that is considered to be the
true beginning for the trend of channeled books: Seth
Material authored by Jane Roberts. At the same time, thanks to
The Dawn of Magick by Lous Pauwels and Jacquese Bergier,
a new concept is introduced: that the life on Earth is a result of
an alient intervention. In the future, Erich von Daniken will
explore this idea further.
In 1966, thanks to works of Gavin Arthur, the term The Age of
Aquarius receives its modern, as we understand it, meaning. At
the same year, Jean Houston and Robert E. L. Masters publish
the results of experimenting with LSD which ignited further
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Mark L. Prophet dies three years later and from the moment on,
he is known as the Ascended Master Lanello.
In the 70s, a new magazine is being published, named New Age
Journal, which further on strengthens the term New Age.
Hundreds if not thousands of New Age bookstores is being
launched in the 70s in the USA. In the 1973, Claude Vorilhon
creates the organization known as The International Raelian
Movement, and a year later, New Age receives another term
describing a collection of ideas: Earth Mysteries, which collects
the mysteries of Earth. This term has been introduced by an
unknown author in a book Whole Earth Catalogue, referring
the term to the energetic system of Earth, similar to that of a
human system of Nadi and Chakras.
In the 1975 another spiritual school of techniques is introduced:
The Course in Miracles in the book under the same title. It is
authored by Helen Shucman and William Thetford. In the future,
more spirtitual and inner growth techniques will be developed
based on the Course in Miracles.
The late 70s witness yet another new trend that will evolve
further from the moment on. Starhawk publishes her The
Spiral Dance, which will influence the feminist movement and
the concept of the awakening of female energy as an integral
part of both material and spiritual realm. Also in the 70s, the
works of Ralph Blume, especially The Book of Runes,
become a source of revival for norse runes, which are
considered for time being as a method of divination. Later on,
runes will be returned to the growing Asatru and Heaten pagan
movements.
The 80s
In the 80s, another major book is published: Out on a Limb,
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Summary
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Some sources:
Beside controversial Wikipedia, multiple websites and all the
books mentioned in this work, I've used the following sources:
1. Greer, J.M., The New Encyclopedia of the Occult.
[Published by] Llewellyn Publications 2003.
2. Guiley, R.E., The Encyclopedia of Ghosts and Spirits.
[Published by] Facts On File 2007.
3. Guiley, R. E., The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft
& Wicca. [Published by] Facts On File 2008.
4. Whitworth, B., New Age Encyclopedia. A Mind, Body,
Spirit Reference Guide. [Published by] New Page Books,
Franklin Lakes 2003.
5. New Age Movement Timeline at:
http://www.shangrala.org/father/RELIGIONS/11NewAg
e/Timeline-6.html#top
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