What Is The New Age?

No one speaks for the entire New Age community. Within the movement, there
is no agreement on how to define it or even that it is sufficiently
cohesive to be called a movement; although there does seem to be more and
more people moving in the same direction. What follows then are thoughts
that reflect The Door Opener's ideas and ideals and borrow from writings of
David Spangler and other New Age philosophers.

The term New Age is a metaphor for the process of striving for personal
growth through which people are trying to become more fully awake to their
inherent capacities and to use their energy for a greater good.

The New Age is the condition that emerges when life is lived in a creative,
empowering, compassionate manner. It manifests when we recognize and honor
both the intrinsic wholeness of the world and the value of everything
within it. It arises when we honor each person, animal, plant or object as
unique yet also as a part of ourselves.

The New Age is a process happening now, not some future event. It is a
special creative attitude to bring to everyday, ordinary affairs: as in
nurturing your marriage, in gracefully meeting the demands of parenthood,
in doing your work well, in supporting others, and in confronting your
shortcomings and boundaries.

Often the New Age is seen as only the pursuit of Eastern philosophies or
the occult, or involvement with channeling, crystals, reincarnation and
psychic phenomena. Indeed this is a part of the movement, however, to
equate the New Age with psychic phenomena is a limited and distorting view.

For New Age activities take many forms that are not only involved with the
paranormal or the religious. They include such things as ecological
restoration and balance, new understandings of education and of the
capabilities of the human intellect; citizen diplomacy missions to Russia;
the exploration of empowerment politics and holistic thought and activity
in areas such as science, the arts, music, business and health.

The New Age deals with issues of planetarization and the emergence of an
awareness that we are all one people living on one world that share a
common destiny. It represents social, political, economic, psychological
and spiritual efforts to recognize and include all that our modern society
has tended to exclude: the poor, the dispossessed, the feminine, the
ecological and inwardly, all the painful repressed and unintegrated
material we carry. The New Age is the integration of these hidden and
suppressed elements of our personal and collective lives so that we may
individually and as a species achieve wholeness. It is a redefinition of
humanity's role within creation, emphasizing our servanthood rather than
our mastery, our stewardship rather that our dominion.

The New Age stresses Responsibility - both taking it and using it wisely.
By taking responsibility for our lives and the events that befall us, we
take back the power we have given away to others, regain control of our
lives, and heal ourselves and the planet.

We explore alternatives that give us new choices. Alternative approaches to
health and healing which better integrate mind, body, emotions and spirit.
Alternative ways of living that trade what is expected for what is
effective. Alternative philosophies that better integrate what we see with
how we feel. Alternative politics and social ideas to enable us to get
along and prosper more equitably.

We are fascinated by our possibilities and the possibilities for humankind.
This leads us to explore leading edge science in areas as diverse as
consciousness research, mind/brain relationships, the holographic universe,
quantum physics and nutrition; as well as the properties of crystals,
altered states of consciousness and parapsychology. We delve into and try
to integrate in our understanding philosophy, psychology, physics, religion
and medicine.

The movement is also making a tremendous contribution, often overlooked by
the media, to teaching and the understanding of learning styles; to
creativity and consciousness research; to healing through focusing on the
mind/body connection; to business through humanistic management practices;
to bettering relationships through attention to personal responsibility;
and even to enhancing sports performance through visualization techniques.

Most of all, the New Age continues to provide for millions a guiding vision
of ways to become a more loving human being working to make a better world.

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