New Age Movements (AQA A Level Sociology): Revision Note

New Age movements

• New Age movements cover a broad range of beliefs and practices, often drawing on Eastern traditions (e.g. Buddhism, Hinduism) and alternative spirituality

• Practices include astrology, crystals, reiki, tarot, meditation, yoga, and holistic healing

• Key features of New Age beliefs include:

  • self-spirituality – individuals seek the divine within themselves

  • detraditionalisation – reject the authority of traditional religions; truth is found through personal experience

• New Age movements are usually world-affirming – they help people succeed in everyday life rather than reject it

Postmodernity and the New Age

• New Age movements fit postmodern society because they:

  • encourage individualism – people choose their own truth rather than rely on institutions

  • promote consumer-style 'spiritual shopping'

  • flourish during times of uncertainty, risk, and globalisation, offering meaning and reassurance

• Drane (1999) argues that New Age movements are popular because traditional metanarratives (e.g. science, organised religion) have lost credibility

  • Instead of creating progress, science has brought war, genocide and environmental destruction

The New Age and modernity

• Bruce (1995; 2011) argues that New Age movements are a product of modernity, not postmodernity

• Features of modernity that explain New Age movements include:

  • individualism – middle-class focus on self-improvement

  • consumer culture – religion as a product to be bought and used

  • therapeutic appeal – focus on personal fulfilment rather than collective salvation

• Bruce notes that New Age movements are diluted versions of demanding Eastern religions (e.g., Buddhism), reshaped to suit Western consumer culture

• Many New Age movements are audience or client cults, requiring little commitment

• Heelas (1996) argues that New Age movements and modernity are linked in four ways:

  • A source of identity:

    • New Age beliefs offer a source of 'authentic' identity in a fragmented modern world where the individual has many different roles

  • Consumer dissatisfaction:

    • People turn to New Age movements when consumer culture fails to deliver happiness

  • Rapid social change:

    • New Age movements provide certainty and stability where anomie exists

  • Decline of organised religion:

    • Secularisation weakens traditional faith, leaving space for New Age movements to flourish

The Kendal Project

• Heelas et al. (2005) studied spirituality in Kendal, Cumbria (where church attendance was twice the national average)

• They found two domains of religion:

  • Congregational domain – traditional churches, which were still dominant

  • Holistic milieu – rapid growth of New Age participation

• Heelas et al. suggested that New Age movements reflect individualism and appeal to those unwilling to commit to traditional churches

• This could lead to a 'spiritual revolution', where New Age spirituality might overtake traditional religion in future generations

Evaluation of New Age movements

Strengths

• Provide alternatives

  • New Age movements offer spiritual fulfilment to those dissatisfied with consumer culture or alienated from traditional religion

  • This shows that religion is not declining, but simply changing in form

• Reflect wider social trends

  • New Age movements mirror key features of postmodern/late modern society, such as individualism, consumer choice, and globalisation

  • This makes them a useful way to understand how religion adapts to broader cultural shifts

Criticisms

• Shallow commitment

  • Bruce (2002) argues that most people only try out New Age movements rather than commit; involvement is short-term and superficial

  • New Age movements rarely become essential to people's identities and are unlikely to be life-changing

• Not replacing traditional religion

  • Heelas et al. argue that, despite growth, New Age movements are unlikely to become the dominant form of religion

  • In Kendal, only 32% of parents passed New Age interests to their children and women in the holistic milieu were more likely to be childless, therefore limiting future growth

• Middle-class bias

  • New Age movements mainly attract affluent, middle-class women

  • They are less relevant to the working class or Global South, where deprivation (not consumer dissatisfaction) drives religiosity