You were doing pretty well backing away from the ladder and accepting the bush model until you stumble, tripping on the body to body metaphor and discussion of spirits, which is just so much hokey.
That's just your ego pretending that you are something more important in the universe than you are, your premise that thought is "non-physical" is demonstrable claptrap, thought can be easily detected and localized in the brain.
Strawman.
Pelion piled on Ossa
.
Try wiki:
The
New Age movement is a
religious or
spiritual movement that developed in
Western nations during the 1970s. Precise scholarly definitions of the movement differ in their emphasis, largely as a result of its highly
eclectic structure. Nevertheless, the movement is characterised by a
holistic view of the cosmos, a belief in an emergent
Age of Aquarius – from which the movement gets its name – an emphasis on self-spirituality and the authority of the self, a focus on healing (particularly with
alternative therapies), a belief in channeling, and an adoption of a "New Age science" that makes use of elements of the new physics.
The New Age movement evolved from an array of earlier religious movements and philosophies, in particular nineteenth-century groups such as the
Theosophical Society and
Gurdjieff. It also incorporates strands from metaphysics,
perennial philosophy, self-help
psychology, and various Indian teachings such as
Buddhism,
Hinduism and
Yoga[1] In the 1970s, it developed a social and political component.
[2] Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and
metaphysical traditions and infusing them with influences from
self-help and motivational
psychology".
[3] The term
New Age refers to the coming
astrological Age of Aquarius.
[4]
The New Age movement includes elements of older spiritual and religious traditions ranging from
monotheism through
pantheism,
pandeism,
panentheism, and
polytheism combined with
science and
Gaia philosophy; particularly
archaeoastronomy,
astrology,
ecology,
environmentalism, the
Gaia hypothesis, psychology, and
physics. New Age practices and philosophies sometimes draw inspiration from major
world religions:
Buddhism,
Taoism,
Chinese folk religion,
Christianity,
Hinduism,
Sufism (Islam),
Judaism (especially
Kabbalah),
Sikhism; with strong influences from
East Asian religions,
Esotericism,
Gnosticism,
Hermeticism,
Idealism,
Neopaganism,
New Thought,
Spiritualism,
Theosophy,
Universalism, and
Wisdom tradition.
[5]
Though the Urban Dictionary is more amusing and carries more of the flavor:
new age
1. What many hippies of the 60s and 70s turned into in the 80s and 90s with the best intentions, except without drugs or any attempt to change the world. They almost all live in the Southwest, are obsessed with Egypt, India, or someplace else that's exotic, they mix the worst parts of all Eastern and Pagan Religions and say "I'm spiritual, not religious." Almost all are sold out baby boomer women that are not quite fat, have orange hair, and have overbites. They would probably say to this definition, in their draining whisper, "I'm picking up on a lot of hostility here. Can I do Reiki on you?"
2. The music they play while meditating on why Native Americans and Asians don't all love them even though they have the respect to drain their traditions.
"I had a vision from the Spirit I was at the Pyramids and suddenly Isis blanketed me inside a blanket of warm healing energy. You know what that means, I was Nefertiti in a past life. Oh, and these Tibetan monks were giving me prayer flags. And there was some Enya song in the background."
Pronounced to rhyme with "sewage", "New Age" is a term used to refer to the spiritual practices of a sizable fraction of the populations of California and New Mexico.
Dude! I like _so_ totally can't attend that anti-capitalist rally in Berkeley until I've like totally balanced the energy flow in my loft, polished my mood crystals, and had my $15 thimbleful of
Kopi Luwak.
Slack off hippies who don't even have the tits to actually stand for a cause. The believe that the best way to become one with the earth is to buy mass produced books, tapes, crystals, cloth, and other crap that probably were responsible for the death of at least one species of exotic tree and a few dozen monkeys.
They also like to be lazy "vegetarians", lazy activists, and generally holier-than-thou twats who hate any emotion that isn't about sprinkling flowers and love or ****ing your cat.
New Agers like to live in pricey lofts that are especially equipped for white people, drink frappuccinos, and denounce anyone who actually cares about the environment as "extremists". They are usually pacifists, so they're great for the beginner gun enthusiast.
Beth: "Holy s***, look at that New Ager!"
Jessica: "Yeah, I got that beauty a few nights ago. He kept screaming about me disrupting his "chi", so it was a little difficult to concentrate and aim properly."
