New Age - and the inability to discern

Two things strike me about that vast and decades-long New Age spiritual movement in The West.

The first is that they are plagued and pervaded by the malign consequences of the sexual revolution - which is a sign of lack of spiritual depth and conviction. And, with the 'anything-but-Christianity' animus, evidence of a strong covert motivation of practitioners and leaders. In other words, the hostility to Christianity and embrace of Eastern, Jungian and therapeutic spiritualities is often rooted in a desire to escape the sexual constraints of Christianity.

But the second, and something I've not written about before, is the gross deficiency in spiritual discernment evident in pretty much everyone associated with the New Age style of spirituality.

The most blazingly obvious psychopaths and charlatans are able to pass for enlightened New Age gurus and teachers - able to survive and thrive for decades.

This is so gross that it is evidence of a very deep deficit in ordinary human judgment. These are people who set-off the alarm bells of every decent person who has any kind of moral core, any kind of ability to judge character and motivation from facial appearance, behaviour, body language, and tendency.

The New Age is, however, populated and led by people who lack this basic, biological, adaptiveness. And this accounts for many of its problems; its shallowness, incoherence, psychotic optimism, political stupidity and immunity to experience.