"The New Age" is the most overwhelming phenomenon that characterizes the end of the twentieth century and indicates in the most clear way what is expected in the next century
30.3.1999
By: Yosef Dan
Published in "Haaretz" 30/03/1999
When the chroniclers in the future ask to note the cultural characteristics of the last years of the twentieth century - and probably also the first years of the twenty-first century - it must be assumed that the most striking phenomenon that will stand before them is the strange grouping of styles and beliefs, worldviews and terminological systems, known as In the name of "New Age". It is a loose and imprecise umbrella term, which cannot be clearly defined, for the difficulty of beliefs and ways of behaving that has conquered a very wide public in today's world, especially in the Western countries, but its branches reach all corners of the globe.
"The New Age" represents a universal language of conventions, a language that is carried from place to place by the most modern means - in movies and audio and video tapes, in pocket books and television programs, in objects ("crystals") and clothing fashions, and above all via the Internet. In many cases, the communication of the "new era" is not semantic, and any attempt to present the phenomenon through verbal means is inevitably severely lacking. However, the characteristic that I wish to present in this list is that, despite its name, the "new era" is not new at all, but the innovation is in what is currently happening around it and its status within the cultural fabric of our time.
As far as it is possible to judge at this time, the "new era" is the most overwhelming phenomenon that characterizes the end of the twentieth century and indicates in the most clear way what is expected in the next century. I found on the Internet today (early 1999) about a million and a quarter sites associated with this category. In bookstores in Europe and the United States, the dedicated area is expanding rapidly
to the literature of this stream, and entire walls are covered with his publications. In music stores, this style occupies an increasingly central place. The "new era" has now become a sort of "roof structure" within which astrology is included, which was renewed in the last generation and received tremendous conceptual and commercial momentum, and all the fields of "alternative", popular and "scientific" medicine, whose influence on people's lives today is increasing and going very fast. The Internet serves as a sophisticated communication center for the distribution of "New Age" fashions, for the sale of books, tapes and other products, and the effectiveness of this device gives a stormy and sweeping internal rhythm to the spread of the characteristics of this phenomenon.
The "New Age" is not a popular phenomenon, and its characterization as a "superstition" is a mistake
the goal Usually, educated people are seen for her, my son
The middle and upper class, where its focus is usually society
The Bohemian - artists, musicians, actors and people related to the medium
mass media. In many places, especially in the United States, is created
A complete identity between the characterization of Bohemia and the "New Age", and all
The one who wants to present himself as someone who is not "square" and "old-fashioned" makes an effort for himself
behavioral signs and ways of expression from the world of this current.
Those who belong to it do not accept a certain ideological system,
Rather, their identity is expressed in lifestyle, conventions, clothing, jewelry,
Speaking style and terminology. There is no system of "allowed" and "forbidden",
And usually this current does not have any cohesive organizational structure: they exist
Clubs, groups that gather from time to time, focusing around style
certain in music or art, but without leadership with a cohesive structure.
There are "teachers" or "guru" or "accepted" who serve as leaders
For groups whose members change frequently. thousands of groups
Talking about these topics on the Internet ("chats"), a means that enables
Anonymity and extreme freedom of expression. Precisely this lack of formation and lack of structure
They are given great penetration, and they influence mass culture today
and on the norms that create the existential fabric to an increasing extent.
The main nickname of this stream-cluster indicates its apocalyptic nature:
Among those who belong to these groups there is a deep sense of return
which happens and goes, change of ages, when the phenomena around us
are divided into those belonging to the old era, and it is appropriate to stay away from them, and these
which belong to the new era, which must be adopted and cultivated. The main meaning
of the change of the ages is the one reflected in the star map: an era
One astrological now replaces another, and these exchanges, like the transitions
From age to age in previous messianic and apocalyptic teachings, the
The cosmos within a system of new values and forces, which require change
in the behavior of humans.
It is difficult to find common denominators for the thousands of descriptive books
These exchanges of periods give, each in his own way, an explanation and a meaning
for the resulting exchange. In the descriptions I was able to check there is a perception
A distinct Christian of the "Kingdom of Heaven on Earth", which manifests itself in ascension
to a "new level of consciousness", and sometimes it includes the personal appearance of Goel
Wonderful. However, the Christian inner core is woven within an open tract, where
Buddhist and Zen-Buddhist, Zoroastrian elements flow in
and Mithraists, Muslims (especially among blacks in the United States),
Hermetic, pantheistic and pagan, and above all - the persistent use,
The tireless, everywhere possible and impossible, ignoring
From the most jarring absurdities - in the concept of "acceptance".
The main message of the new age is the loss of the meaning of the element
The critic in human culture. It is not enough to say that the new age is heresy
in logic and science. He does not disbelieve in them, but completely ignores them.
In the mouths of the speakers of this stream, scientific concepts - quanta - are very frequent
And gamma rays, quasars and black holes fill out the descriptions
Their cosmologies together with the Indian "karma" and the "Shechina" of Kabbalah.
These scientific and "scientific" concepts have very little to do with the world of research in physics, chemistry or biology - their origin, for the most part, is science fiction literature, which has now become, in large part, a section of the world of the "new age".
The apocalyptic descriptions are often based on concepts from the field of ecology, especially as they appeared in science fiction stories on this background. But the main thing is that within the framework of this system of currents there is no possibility and no opportunity to make an "incorrect" claim. No assertion presented in its frameworks relies on a system of proofs, and it is not perceived as a position in need of proof and defense. The most energetic pseudo-scientific assertions are presented as a personal expression, as a visionary experience, which no criticism will succeed.
"The New Age" is the supreme expression of the triumphant defeat, the absolute completion, of the intellectual-scientific narrative that has dominated the world of thought since the eighteenth century. This narrative is rejected not because it is not true or right, not worse than that: it is irrelevant. "Unity", "wholeness", "expansion of consciousness" are among the common terms in the mouths of the speakers of the "New Age".
The entire cosmos strives for inner harmony, for a unified fusion of all its components, and it calls upon the human consciousness to merge with the rules of this whole. Within this comprehensive harmony, every thing is the same as another thing, and different things are but an expression in different words for the same things themselves. The inner truth of a person is necessarily the same as the inner truth of any other person, even if it appears as if they are saying different things. Because of this, all religions, and all worldviews, are ultimately aimed at the same message.
There is no room for discussion and debate, clarification and proof within the framework of the "new era". Language as a means of expression is replaced by language that impresses by virtue of the terminology used in it. The use of a mixture of scientific and pseudo-scientific, astrological and alchemical, Kabbalistic and Christian, Hindu and Buddhist, Hermetic and mystical terms is intended to create an atmosphere and impression more than a semantic message. The appeal is to the image and impression, not to logic and reason.
This is not the place to find out in detail the origins of this amazing and comprehensive phenomenon. Its prophet-herald in the twentieth century was, without a doubt, Carl Gustav Jung, one of the first students of Sigmund Freud who withdrew from his teacher's circle and turned in a different direction, both in psychology and in the study of culture. Jung saw Freud's theory as a Jewish distortion of the Aryan-Christian truth, and worked hard in the many volumes of his writings to establish a new theory, in which there are distinct messianic characteristics, based on sexual libertinism, pseudo-mysticism, and an attempt to show that by virtue of the "archetypes" inherent in the soul of each person there exists An inner identity between Kabbalah and Buddhism, between astrology and alchemy, between the Christian cross and the Hindu mandala, and so on and so forth.
Jung's teaching was heavily nourished by the conceptions of cosmic harmony that dominated European thought in the seventeenth century (and were based to a considerable extent on the teachings of the Christian Kabbalah of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries), and were very prevalent in popular scientific literature in Germany in the nineteenth century , which had a great influence on Jung. Jung's theory of mind completely rejected any conception of historical development, since culture is nothing but the manifestation, in seemingly different forms, of archetypes that are deeply embedded in human nature, and are fixed and unchanging. Jung devoted many of his writings to the "revelation" of this inner identity, to the demonstration of the inner unity between the symbols of astrology and especially alchemy with the religious symbolism of Christianity, and with Kabbalah, which he also perceived as a primarily Christian phenomenon.
The theory of archetypes negated any need for proof and research, since every person who opens the intricacies of his soul before things is present, by virtue of the internal structure of his psyche, in the unity and harmony between the phenomena. The supreme goal of man is the realization of the powers inherent in him, a process known by the Jungians in the ironic expression "individuation", which means the settling of individuality within the general harmony of humanity and the cosmos, the cancellation of his individuality in view of the identity between him and the phenomena of the cosmos, culture and society.
The dominance of the "new era" in the culture of our time is largely aided by the loss of self-confidence of scientists, who can no longer declare outright that their experiments reveal "objective truth" in external reality, and from the deconstruction of the textual sciences, who can no longer testify that a certain text clearly contains a certain meaning .
The airy intuitiveness and image of the "new era" no longer has to deal with scientific, intellectual, research and historical certainties, since these have passed from the world, and their subjects today are in a constant defense with little success.
The apocalyptic message of the "new age" sometimes carries the character of horrific destruction-descriptions, but more often moderate and optimistic descriptions. One can find distinct connections between this apocalyptic literature and the utopian literature of the seventeenth century.
The "stepping up" of consciousness, which leads to peace of mind and social harmony, to understanding the cosmos and integrating with it emotionally, contains clear utopian characteristics. Often the two elements are combined with each other, and the descriptions of the destruction are a prelude and an introduction to the beginning of the utopian age. One of the characteristics of the visionary in this literature is also one of the classic elements of apocalyptic thinking: "Ten more in ten", i.e. - a utopia established by those who survived after the destruction of the world, the small minority of nobles who restart the life of humanity after the great majority was destroyed By a series of natural or man-made disasters, or - at times - the result of a collision with forces outside this world.
One of the most prominent expressions of the apocalyptic of the new age is the unified vision of the past, present and future - as is also found in classical apocalypses - from a complete rejection of any historical conception - something that is not characteristic of previous apocalypses. The new age completely rejects any systematic and critical historical view.
The hostility to historical research has characterized a series of schools of thought in European and American thought in the last two generations, starting with the teachings of Carl Gustav Jung and Mircea Eliade in the field of psychology and religion and ending with French postmodernism in the XNUMXs, in the writings of Jean-Francois Leotard and his friends. The new age adopted many ideas from these sources, and it treats the words of the times as a subjective expression of members of different generations, as a fictional literature that has no systematic connection to the reality outside of it.
In the "New Age" books, the reader often finds a random and scattered collection of references to historical events, without early or late, without distinguishing between events and legends, between imagination and reality. The "Star Wars" film series represents well the concept of history that characterizes this style. In the writings of some of these authors, one can find the concept of "myth" replacing the concept of history, and the great influence of Roland Barthes and the comprehensive concept of myth that he presented in the seventies and eighties is evident in the words.
It seems to me that it can be stated that the "new era" has been made in recent years to express the positive which is the other side of the coin of the postmodernist negation. The postmodernist message was mainly a sharp negation of the ideologies and narratives of modernity, without offering a positive substitute. Many of the critics of postmodernism wondered and asked what kind of worldview could grow out of a set of ideas whose main point is the complete negation of any worldview whatsoever. Here we have before us the new age, which fulfills all the negative claims of the postmodernist thinkers on their various currents: the mixture of ideas of the new age, which joins more to the rule of style than to the rule of ideology, appears these days as the only alternative to the thought methods of the previous centuries. This is expressed in the attitude of the "New Age" towards language versus reality: since it denies any criticism, the concepts used by its speakers are not required to represent any reality that exists outside of them. Any attempt to establish a relationship between signifier and signified, between the linguistic expression and the reality it seeks to reflect, requires an ideological determination of the relationship between human consciousness and reality. Postmodernism denies such a statement, and therefore, within its framework, it is impossible to claim that the words have a realistic meaning, or that the text has a message that stands on its own. The new age has fully embraced this concept, and it maintains its circle of being within the framework of words alone, without these being required to represent anything that is beyond them. Hence the negation of the possibility of debate, discussion and criticism, since criticism means an attempt to compare a linguistic expression with what it is supposed to represent and to check whether it does so correctly.
Since within the framework of the "New Age" there is no requirement that the word have an external meaning, there is no place and no need for criticism and controversy. Everyone is allowed to make any use that comes to their mind of any expression, including "black hole" and "acceptance", without any need to give an account of the relationship between the expression and the "true" meaning of "black hole" or "acceptance"; Whoever claims that both refer to the same thing, is not expected to be criticized or refuted.
It should be mentioned that trends, classes and currents of a sort of "New Age" were present in Western culture at least since the seventeenth century, and their influence was especially great in the nineteenth century. The new beliefs in "flying saucers", in interstellar travel, in the abduction of people by aliens and the like, have given renewed impetus to this in recent decades. However, the main thing is not the new contents, but the fact that it has no precedent, that compared to the "new era" there is no restraining force, and there is no one to present a reasoned and grounded alternative to it. The Christian churches for the most part are more inclined to compromise and integrate with the new style than to come out as a buffer against it, and many Christian thinkers combine the ways of expression of the "new age" with the Christian gospel; There is no difficulty, after all, in asserting that adherence to Jesus is what elevates the consciousness to a higher level - it is easier to merge with the dull style that is spreading and gradually, than to go out against it. Jungian psychology identifies with this wave without difficulty, and so do other psychological schools, similar to the old classes that concern the medicine of the mind and the medicine of the body.
Scientists have lost the self-confidence they enjoyed in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, while faith in human reason and the ability of pure logic to present rational truth has almost completely disappeared from the world. A cultural style that was considered "low" in previous generations (in relation to pure science and reason) and superstitions (when we still knew what non-superstitions were), has now become dominant, irreplaceable and is seen as a faithful expression of human culture in the transition to the next century and the next millennium.
I tried to present things from a historical point of view, from the acceptance of the judgment. What is happening is more extensive in its dimensions and impact than one can imagine opposing it. It seems that in Israel things have not yet been felt in their full force, and many of the phenomena that characterize the "new era" are scattered, without a sense of belonging to an umbrella framework: the worship of MTV, Dana International, journalism that is mainly gossip, alternative medicine and acupuncture, astrology and Kabbalah , "throwaway" clothing and a style of speech saturated with pseudo-scientific and pseudo-psychological concepts, the hostility to history and any systematic value system - all these are found among us, but they have not yet been recognized as a unity of an apocalyptic nature that elevates those devoted to it to a "new stage of consciousness", there is no doubt that the The spirit that is taking over the lifestyle in the United States and Europe will come to us in full force and will find a ready ground for their blossoming. In this respect, as far as can be seen now, the next century brings with it a new era, marked by the "new era".
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