Page 1 - The New Age Chronicles Newspaper No 1 Vol 1

Vol 1, No 01
Is “The New Age” Old
News?
by Gwilda Wiyaka
Editor-in-chief
Many consider the New Age Movement to have
its roots in a range of spiritual or religious
beliefs and practices that developed in Western
nations during the 1970s – just at the end of the
“Commune Movement” of the 60s. Yet the
Cosmic Humanist movement has its roots as far
back as the Romantic poets of the 1800s. Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Henry
David Thoreau rejected the God of the Bible,
writing about a transcendent quality of
spirituality experienced entirely through
personal introspection.
A REL-MAR McConnell Media Company Publication Digital Version - June/July 2018
In the late 19th century, Russian Spangler brought forth the idea that there would
spiritualist Helena Blavatsky (1831 -1891) be a release of new waves of spiritual energy, as
announced a coming New Age. She believed a result of astrological changes when the earth
that theosophists should assist the evolution of moved into a new cycle characterized by the
the human race and prepare to cooperate with Age of Aquarius. Spangler felt these events
one of the “Ascended Masters of the Great would initiate the coming of the New Age. He
White Brotherhood,” whose arrival was further suggested that people use this new
imminent. Blavatsky believed the members of energy to make manifest the New Age (i).
this mystical brotherhood to be the hidden world Eventually, the New Age movement lost
leaders who guided the destiny of the planet. Her its original focus of personal introspection and
ideas contributed to the concept of a New Age the evolution of the human race promised by the
heralded by the coming of the Aquarian Age, impending high frequency Aquarian Age. It
that promised a period of brotherhood and became a catchall for doomsday theories, self-
enlightenment. proclaimed channels, chrystal healing practices,
In the 1940s, Alice A. Bailey, founder of and anything else that didn’t agree with
the Arcane School, suggested that a new mainstream science and religion.
messiah, the Master Maitreya, would appear in By the end of the 1980s, the New Age
the last quarter of the 20th century. Bailey movement lost its momentum. Although viewed
brought people together in groups of three to as a religious movement, it was disparaged for
meditate daily, believing that they received its acceptance of unscientific ideas and
divine energy, which they shared with others, practices.
thereby raising overall spiritual awareness. Following was the hype and hysteria
After Bailey’s death, other groups about the Mayan calendar and the purported end
formed, claiming the ability to transmit spiritual of the world on 12-21-12.
energy to the world, and allegedly received Yet here we are, the Age of Aquarius is
channeled messages from various preternatural indeed upon us, and with it, monumental change
beings, such as the Ascended Masters of the and upheaval. While many of the early so called
Great White Brotherhood. New Age beliefs were laced with giant leaps of
In the 1960s, the leader of the Universal illogic and faulty conclusions, the rapid
Foundation, Anthony Brooke, traveled widely, transformative changes of our current times
predicting an apocalyptic event during the cannot be denied.
Christmas season of 1967.
In 1970, American theosophist David (Continued on Page 3)