Sutcliffe, is notoriously variegated and severely contested, party to competing strands of revelation and apocalypse. Caught between the hippy explosion and the terrifying doomsday scenarios of milennial Christianity and survivalist groups, it has been the preserve both of extreme, other-wordly religious individualists and of humanistic countercultures stressing the Edenic perfection of this-wordly existence. At stake in its history are controversial questions of value, and of its perceived status as a discrete and unified movement. What 'counts' as New Age? To whom does New Age culture belong? Is it now genuinely mainstream, or does its egalitarian, grass-roots, small-group ethos resist easy appropriation and succinct politicisation? Making special reference to first-hand accounts of the author's adventures in counterculture, including firewalking, spiritual healing workshops and life within a Findhorn community, and to archival correspondence and publications recovering the 'lost' history of alternative spirituality during the 1950s and 1960s, this is a thoughtful and colourful survey of the trends and controversies that accompany the concept of 'New Age'.
It calls for a fresh understanding of New Age as an emergent and fragmented form of folk idiom, complete with its own revealing loyalties and fractures; not a unified 'movement' or 'new religion', but a diffuse cultural force reflecting ever-shifting currents of popular sentiment.
Share This Book: