New Age Spiritualities as Secular Religion: a Historian's Perspective

The New Age movement represents the historically innovative phenomenon of a secular type of religion based upon a radically private symbolism. This thesis is developed against the background of a three-part definition of religion, according to which “religion” in general may manifest in the form of either “religions” or “spiritualities”. Secularization, in this context, refers not to a decline or disappearance but to a through transformation of religion under the impact of new developments. The essence of this process lies in the autonomization of “spiritualities” with respect to “religions”: while spiritualities had traditionally been embedded in the collective symbolism of an existing religion, New Age spiritualities are manifestations of a radically private symbolism embedded directly in secular culture. From a historical point of view, this phenomenon is new and unprecedented. Special attention is given to how and why private symbolism in the New Age context tends to concentrate on “the Self” and its spiritual evolution.