What I Don’t Like About the New Age

Posted on July 22, 2004 in Myths & Mysticism

Though we have much in common, there’s a certain chasm between me and New Agers, almost as deep as the one I experience between me and Christian Fundamentalists.

As I spoke with the young man last night, I kept hearing him cite the Buddha on this or the Buddha on that as “proof” that he and those he admired had arcane powers, but nowhere did I hear him refer to the Four Noble Truths or its central message of compassion. Such people, I suspect, are what he calls “intellectual Buddhists”. Over and over again, I heard about this special seeing which didn’t sound all that different, when it was applied to America’s quagmire in Iraq, to the message of the Libertine Republicans. True, Bush was seen as stuck at a lower level, but the level he proposed as better wasn’t all that much more advanced in my eyes. There was the same Total Self-Interest, the illusion of special power.

In his eyes, if I only saw “the emptiness” I would rush to his view. From what I have read and experienced of the Buddha’s message, on the other hand, I know that it isn’t about emptiness but about the sense of being a part of the Universe and loving the whole Universe. This fellow talked about how America alone could solve the problem of the Iraqi occupation. I knew as he droned on that he understood nothing, nothing at all about why these things were happening and that if put in power, he would repeat the same mistakes. Emptiness described his philosophy better than he realized.