New York: Continuum, 2005)

A sample entry from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature (London & New York: Continuum, 2005) Edited by Bron Taylor © 2005 All Rights Reserved Network on Conservation and Religion 1193 Levy, Robert I. Mesocosm: Hinduism and the Organization WWF 1986) set the standard for the activities (interfaith of a Traditional Newar City in Nepal. Berkeley: Uni- meetings, celebrations of specially designed ceremonies versity of California Press, 1991. like Harvest rituals, environmental projects run by Slusser, Mary Shepherd. Nepal Mandala: A Cultural religious communities in collaboration with scientists Study of the Kathmandu Valley, 2 vols. Princeton, NJ: and the WWF, publication of more declarations) of the Princeton University Press, 1982. Network from 1986–1995. During this time, the WWF See also: Buddhism – Tibetan; Hinduism; Mongolian Network on Conservation and Religion published a Buddhism and Taimen Conservation; Mountaineering; periodical The New Road, and in cooperation with WWF- Sacred Mountains; Tibet and Central Asia. International and ICOREC it helped pave the way for several other publications, including among others the series World Religions and Ecology published by Cassell. Network on Conservation and Religion In 1995, the WWF Network on Conservation and Religion was subsumed by the Alliance of Religion and Conserva- In September 1986, to commemorate its 25th anniversary, tion, ARC. the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) founded a Network on Conservation and Religion. At the initiative of Tim Jensen the then-president of the WWF, Prince Philip of the UK, and Martin Palmer, director of ICOREC (the International See also: Alliance of Religion and Conservation; World Consultancy on Religion, Education and Culture), a Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). strange mix of environmentalists, including grassroot environmentalists, prominent officers of WWF-Inter- national, and representatives from the five so-called world New Age religions (Buddhism, Christianity, Hinduism, Islam and Judaism) undertook a pilgrimage to Assisi, Italy, the birth- The New Age movement is an amorphous association of place of St. Francis, the Roman Catholic saint whom the people who identify primarily as spiritual explorers. Many Vatican had in 1979 given official status as a heavenly if not most feel that humanity is at the dawn of entering protector for environmentalists. into a new form of consciousness. The new Age of The final session was staged as a religious ceremony in Aquarius, unlike its Piscean predecessor, is to be a time the basilica raised above the grave of St. Francis, and for balance between male and female qualities, the included apologies to First Peoples represented by a Maori elimination of aggression and power obsessions, and a warrior. Representatives of the religious traditions read civilization more in tune with the rhythms of nature and their declarations on religion and nature and pledged based on a more equitable development of human poten- themselves to cooperate with each other and the WWF tial. New Age adherents or associates, inevitably charac- in order to help save the planet, Mother Earth, from terized by various forms of spiritual syncretism, are ecological disaster. The WWF Network on Religion and seekers after what they believe to be truth and peace. With Conservation (sometimes also called The New Alliance), this protean mix of nuance and the bizarre, the New Age was thus formally established. Other religions joined the itself remains among the more difficult of contemporary network in subsequent years, including Bahá’í, Sikhism, spiritual developments to comprehend and portray, but Jainism and Daoism. as a “religion of commodification,” it parlays with any The ideas behind the Network can be summarized as number of alternative medical or psychological methods follows: the religious traditions, with their spiritual and ranging from meditation, acupuncture, homeopathy, ethical values as well as their billions of adherents and aromatherapy, astrology, environmentalism, Hermetic their impact on substantial geographical and cultural practice, Esoteric Christianity and Goddess Worship. areas all over the world, can cooperate with conservation- Beneath the popular image of New Age, its antecedents ists to make a substantial and durable contribution to derive from various venerable aspects of what Colin environmental thinking and practice. Though recognizing Campbell terms the “cultic milieu.” Among these we find that the religions in the past have not always contributed the Spiritualist, New Thought and Theosophical traditions in a positive way to the conservation of the natural of the nineteenth century. From these particular orienta- environment, the Network sees them as an alternative tions, New Age inherits its practice of channeling spirits to a purely materialistic, dualistic, anthropocentric and or entities from other dimensions, its belief that both utilitarian worldview which has been partly responsible illness and poverty are illusions or diseases of the mind, for creating the environmental crisis. and its understandings of karma and reincarnation. The The event in Assisi, and the issuing of the declarations “cultic milieu” is itself a mix of non-mainstream spiritual (published by WWF-International as The Assisi and esoteric ideas imported from the East and blended Declarations on Religion and Nature: Interfaith Ceremony, with Western occult and pagan notions. The bedrock New 1194 New Age Age spiritual position is Gnostic or Transcendental and shifting rostrum of spokespeople, therapists and teachers. seeks divine truth as something masked by the physical In short, its fluid organization or even non-organization phenomenal world. From this perspective, nature is con- makes it more of a consumer phenomenon than anything sidered ultimately an illusion and something that must be that could be understood as traditionally religious. In fact, penetrated to gain access to “higher understandings.” New Agers frequently proclaim that they are not religious In the 1960s, at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur, Califor- but spiritual. This non-institutional nature and marketing nia, the Jewish-German ex-patriot Fritz Perls introduced choice of New Age appears to be its underlying appeal. his Group Gestalt Therapy with its stress on the value of The New Age represents a if not the spiritual consumer immediate, authentic experience within a framework that supermarket that is steadily superseding the appeal of takes the mind/body as a holistic organism rather than a traditional religion in the Western world. In the present- Cartesian dichotomy. Perls, along with such seminal day context of rapid social change, New Age may be cited thinkers as Wilhelm Reich, Otto Rank, Kurt Lewin, and as an affirmation and celebration of spiritual choice. Carl Rogers and such complementary practices as Abra- But this in turn leads to severe accusations of cultural ham Maslow’s Self-Actualization and Roberto Assagioli’s appropriation – especially from identity-endangered Psychosynthesis, launched the field of humanistic psy- peoples such as Native Americans and the Aboriginal chology from which the Growth and Human Potential peoples of Australia. As a rebuttal, New Age insists that movements took their birth. Beginning in California and the multi-cultural register is now public domain and quickly spreading beyond, Human Potential intertwined accessible to everyone. with the American psychedelic heritage and spawned In short, an inordinate amount of criticism is directed numerous self-help/psychophysical therapeutic practices. against its varied practices and more prominent beliefs. As these became increasingly integrated with the “cultic Foremost is the critique that dismisses New Age spirituality milieu,” the New Age as a self-conscious spiritual move- as essentially narcissistic. The self-preoccupation that ment began to evolve. has to do with “me” only is described as touchy-feely, Following the emergence of transpersonal psychology airy-fairy, intellectually vapid and eclectically woolly. For from humanistic psychology and concern with the trans- many, New Age is described as cheaply false, spiritually cendent potential of the individual in self-actualization, kitsch, and a mumbo-jumbo mash that is pastel-colored New Age represents the spiritualization of the Human and lavender-scented. Its central purpose is frequently Potential movement. Placing relationship with divinity understood by the non-sympathetic as little more than an into a holistic worldview, any development of an ecology effort to make money from those reputedly foolish enough of self eventually includes an ecology of the planet and to purchase the many gimmicks and psychophysical the potential for cross-fertilization with the concerns of therapies that are marketed under the widely embracing deep ecology. Succinctly, and grounded by the astrological label of New Age. consideration that we are leaving an age of Pisces for the The New Age response to anti-religion criticism accepts new age of Aquarius, the New Age is an expectation of that religions have their roots in early practicalities and individual change that will coalesce into a quantum leap anxieties but argues that uncertainty and the need for of collective consciousness. Following current theories of pragmatic solutions is no less a part of our ever-changing complexity that study spontaneous self-organization in and increasingly complicated world. The New Ager is also which the whole becomes more than simply the sum of its as

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