A Bit of a Circus: Notes on Postmodernity and New Age

Abstract

The religious phenomenon known as New Age and the social/cultural condition referred to as 'postmodernity' appear to have a number of features in common. As yet, little work has been done exploring these apparent similarities, but the topic is ripe for investigation. The debate over postmodernity is open to 'religious' possibilities. This contrasts with modernity, one of whose motifs was the exclusion of religion. Moreover, both postmodernity and New Age may be seen as responses to a perceived 'crisis of modernity'. Specifically, some of their putative connections are as follows: both refer to a new era, both abandon old verities, in both self and consumption are central issues, neither is sanguine about politics, both assume new modes of organization, both may be viewed in terms of globalization and both may be understood in terms of the fin de siècle.