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Dzenan Mahalbasic
ANT 386 301
Dr. Hofman
9 June 2020

New Age Spiritual Consumerism

the role it plays in creating consumption patterns that rival previous ways of living. The New

Age as an ideological movement began as a reaction to the dominant ideological system of

Naturalism. Which stated that the universe is operating under the basis of natural laws. It is quite

a natural reaction to have when the entirety of the world view is based on the materialistic

aspects of reality. Everything that is and ever was could have only been the ‘real material’ we see

manifesting in reality, based on naturalist thought. This world view was so dominant in the eyes

of the church and therefore mirrored in western society at that point, so much so that movements

sprang up in order to fill the spiritual void left by materialist ways of thinking, like the

transcendentalists. The transcendentalists seek to claim the good hearted nature of man and

nature itself, while proclaiming that the corruption and evil that prevails among society is not

because man is inherently evil, yet rather due to the social, political, and religious groups and

classes that divide us. In the early stages, there was no clear set-out belief that New Age

spirituality carried, rather it was more of an open vessel of syncretistic belief of all and any anti-

naturalist ideals. It is my personal belief that New Age spirituality was one of the first

manifestations of the types of change that the binding force of globalization would create. It is

also interesting to note that most New Agers reside in the western industrialized world, which

begs into question what role do economic and socio-economic policies have on spirituality.

There are multiple components or factions within the New Age movement, that have no

particular hierarchy due to its decentralized nature. For example, astrology, ecology, evolution,
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feminism, Hinduism, Buddhism, mysticism, the self-esteem movement, aliens, witchcraft, yoga,

and very importantly holistic healing are all parts of the New Age movement. This movement is

hyper fixated on absolving any hegemonic forces that force a materialist way of life. In the 1960s

and 1970s, the zeitgeist of popular culture was focused on communism, capitalism, and

militarism, all facets of a worldview that New Age wanted to eliminate in order to beckon in the

Age of Aquarius. This new age of unity and connection of all people was the end goal, and quite

honestly the main thing that kept the movement unified, as the factions were often varied and

unrelated at times. It turns out that the New Age movement has no true beginning point, as it

draws upon many older beliefs and teachings particularly the esoterics. New Age thinkers range

in the level of tens of millions if not hundreds of millions at this point in time. Being that such a

vast number of people subscribe to the ideology, a huge market pertaining to any and all the

factions of the New Age have sprung into healthy commercial markets. The question posed in

this work is dealing with the level of the New Age market maturity and the changes that the

movement made in society and realities on the ground. Furthermore, one side question to keep in

mind is how the New Age movement sprang from anti-materialistic sympathies and eventually

recreated a different kind of materialism in the form of narcissistic consumption.

The Age of Aquarius is the new dawn and time of great spiritual awakening according to

the beliefs. All efforts taken by New Agers are tied to the belief in raising the vibrational

consciousness of the Earth and all its people to ascend to the Age of Aquarius and recognize our

true powers. Whether or not this is true and the Age of Aquarius truly is upon us, it is not of any

importance to me, but rather what is important is the question of how is raising consciousness

done, and is the goal still the same after all these years. According to Eileen Barker (2007)

“Institutionalized traditional religion might no longer be playing the public role that it has at
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times in the past; both membership and church attendance figures might have been falling quite

dramatically since World War II”(Barker, 2007, p.1). In lieu of traditional faith, many have

abandoned it for atheism but many too find different outlets that cater to their tastes better.

Christianity may have fallen after WW2 but the New Age movement was burgeoning as a

fruitful new alternative that piqued the interest of westerners into Eastern schools of thought. The

following Cold War period and the Vietnam War further exacerbated the movement proliferation

in tandem with the hippies of the age. Common habits of consumption included drug use in the

form of marijuana, LSD, or magic mushrooms (more contemporaneously-also DMT and

ayahuasca). Even today, one apparent driving force of the New Age culture is exposure to

psychedelics which facilitates the opening of the mind to such spiritual concepts. The

consumption of psychedelic drugs is so connected to the New Age patterns of thought that the

mere usage of the drugs would be enough to advertise the movement as something familiar and

connected to the ‘grand secrets uncovered’ while seduced by the psychedelic effects of the drugs.

It is actually the only facet of culture that directly understands, connects, and explains the

questions confused drug users had after the high wore off. Religion gives no true insight as it is

considered sinful to be intoxicated, and in the same way, the illegality of psychedelics made it

taboo in popular culture, leaving only the New Age to toy with these concepts openly. There is

nothing specific that New Agers feel or believe about the drugs that connect them to the ideology

and spiritual system, rather the connection is based on the openness of New Age culture that

allows for the exploration of drugs and the culture of accepting drug use.

As with drugs, an additional habit of consumption that is prevalent with this movement

was at some point heavy on books. The New Age genre in the book industry was of considerable

size; there were many book stores catering to only New Age beliefs at some point yet still new
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age books are around and even part of the larger book stores today. More so in the past were

books at the forefront of the movement, yet still today the works of New Age thinkers are

appreciated by many people. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Walt Whitman

were among the great writers of the Transcendentalist movement, which supported the New Age

movement owing a lot to the contributions of transcendentalist thought. Transcendentalists did

not make the great claims that are associated with New Age rather, they set the stage for those

New Age ideas to come to fruition. Apart from books are the services offered to New-Age

consumers: from fortune tellers, reiki healers, and to ajna light therapy. Kari Paul (2018) writes

in her MarketWatch article, “The psychic services industry — which includes astrology, aura

reading, mediumship, tarot-card reading and palmistry, among other metaphysical services —

grew 2% between 2011 and 2016. It is now worth $2 billion annually, according to industry

analysis firm IBIS World” (Paul, 2018). All of these services have in common the ability for

New Age thinkers to be consumers of these highly specialized services that can be found

nowhere else and offer something mysterious yet alluring. The renouncing of traditional western

Christian values probably offers the biggest clue into this whole process, as New Agers take

from transcendentalists and renounce organized religions. In any case, the Muslim world has

never truly lived in the system of pure materialist culture as we have in America, perhaps

explaining a subsequent lack of prevailing New Age culture.. There is so much uncertainty in a

world where we are so detached from the processes that define everyday life, where individuals

have no clue what big business is doing and have no real representation in government, people

find consolidation in gaining knowledge on esoteric ideas kept hidden from them. People in

materialist societies feel as though their lives lack the meaning it deserves and therefore they

look for thousands of years of history of their astrological signs to give it all some kind of
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meaning. This hyper demand for astrology as a facet of popular culture is manifested in popular

astrology apps like co-star, horoscopes in the newspaper, and astrology call-in tv shows in

Eastern Europe.

Spiritual tourism in the context of the New Age is manifested in two different types. For

many on the New Age path with a particular interest in Hinduism or Buddhism, a trip to the

ashrams of India are their go-to destination. India has many spiritual tourist sites and a rich

Hindu culture that has preserved over the ages. The second type of spiritual tourism in question

is shamanic tourism based in the Americas, in Southwest USA, Central, and South America.

With the intent to change themselves, Wendy Wiedenhoft mentions the core of what happens to

a tourist, “In other words, instead of just gazing, tourists are doing stuff—eating, conversing,

walking, reading, sunning, and surfing. And by doing stuff, tourists do not simply transform

themselves, but they also change the places that they visit” (Wiedenhoft, 2017, p.101). That

being said, that is applicable to all levels and types of tourism not being confounded only to

spiritual tourism. The spiritual tourist is one who wishes to extract more esoteric knowledge

from their tourist experience. Veronica Davidov (2013) writes, “shamans develop relationships

with powerful spirits, who facilitate the shaman’s passage into the spirit world, a passage he

accomplishes with the help of the “vine of the soul”(Davidov, 2013, p. 155). These shamans

develop and cultivate supernatural skills unperceivable to the human eye normally but under

ritualistic conditions reveals their true nature. The skills and knowledge of these shamen are

unknown and reserved for their knowledge, leaving a huge gap in demand exceeding supply. For

that reason, shaman tourism has grown at a high rate in these recent years. Davidov (2013)

continues to add, “Along with other aspects of indigenous cultural identity, shamanism has

become a commodified cultural object, entering the global marketplace in a sanitized form that
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hides the nuances and complexities that have emerged during the process of commodification”

(Davidov, 2013, 157). This process will eventually lead to the total sanitation of shamanic work

which could strip away its overarching cultural significance as more and more emphasis is

placed on the importance of the tourist’s dollar than the spiritual work being done. That’s not the

only instance of spiritual practice losing its meaning and tarnishing the cultural importance in

regards to consumerism and spirituality. The now commonplace practice amongst many New

Agers is to partake in sage burning or smudging which is said to clear the air of bad spirits and

energy. The over-cultivation and mass farming of sage have corrupted away the cultural

significance of the practice in Native spirituality. The meaning behind smudging is to have that

connection with the Earth and burning foreign sage that you did not grow is against the whole

point. Jennifer Stoffel (1988) writes “It is hard to put a dollar amount on New Age merchandise,

but businesses big and small are cashing in. They range from such major publishers as Time-Life

Books and Doubleday to television programmers like Home Box Office or PBS to ''mom and

pop'' rock stores being repackaged as crystal shops” (Stoffel, 1988, p.13). Shamanic rituals being

sanitized to garner more tourist dollars and a ‘mom and pop’ rock store rebranding as a crystal

shop are instances where the nature of the market changes the reality based on market conditions.

How could it be that a movement which had its base in the rejection of materialist

ideology turned around and embraced market capitalist consumerism so fast? It seems as though

as long as the consumption in question was serving a spiritual end it would be deemed a spiritual

act rather than a monetary transaction. Jennifer Rindfleish (2005) writes about her research on

New Age Spirituality and consumerism, “The analysis shows how the discourse and practices of

New Age spiritual thinkers align themselves with consumptive behavior by secularising,
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homogenizing and over‐simplifying scientific, social scientific and traditional religious discourse

and practices into “social products” for consumption”(Rindfleish, 2005, p.1). It seems as though

it is also about the social sphere of consuming spiritual goods in an attempt to find identity

within the group. Furthermore, to access parts of New Age spirituality the individual is forced to

partake in some form of consumption. Also, it should be noted that New Age consumption

patterns fit in nicely with hypermodern consumption patterns of the future, employing spiritual

meaning to consuming things. Additionally, there were consumption patterns I overlooked that

include chakra balancing, psychic consultation, dream analysis, and tarot card analysis.

The New Age movement truly is something to study and understand more, because it is

very easy to become part of it and identify with the ideology. It is really an attractive form of

spirituality and thinking, especially in this age and day where traditional value systems and

power structures are being questioned just as they were in the 1970s when the New Age era

began. It offers a look into the different sides of reality where people accept different ideas and

question the accepted ideas. It offers insight that other belief systems do not even consider and

clearly many people find value in it. Even if there was never a clear motive besides raising the

human race to the vibrational consciousness of the Age of Aquarius, the fact of the matter is that

New Age thinking opened up the discourse on psychedelics, altered states of consciousness, and

mystical spirituality. Even if the anti-materialist ideas are more or less left alone, people do find

intrinsic spiritual meaning with their New Age possessions and their concept of animism. The

market capitalist nature of the transaction of spiritual consumption is merely a formality of our

prevailing system, which would be changed altogether if New Age thinking was the hegemonic

ideology. The movement was not inherently corrupted away into a capitalist tool, rather it failed
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so far in changing the prevailing global system and will be subject to greater and greater levels of

consumption as the ideology and spiritual movement spread.

Works Cited

Barker, E. (2007). Book Review: The Spiritual Revolution: Why Religion Is Giving Way to

Spirituality, Paul Heelas, and Linda Woodhead,(Blackwell 2005),; The Re-Enchantment of the West:

Alternative Spiritualities, Secularization, Popular Culture and Occulture, Vol. 1, Christopher Partridge

https://doi.org/10.1177/0040571X0711000222

Davidov, Veronica. (2013). Ecotourism and Cultural Productions: An Anthropology of

Indigenous Spaces in Ecuador. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-35537-4

Davies, K., & Freathy, P. (2014). Marketplace spirituality: challenges for the New Age retailer.

Service Industries Journal, 34(15), 1185–1198.

https://doi-org.ezproxy.depaul.edu/10.1080/02642069.2014.942650

Paul, K. (2018, October 31). Why millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology.

Retrieved May 30, 2020, from https://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-millennials-are-ditching-

religion-for-witchcraft-and-astrology-2017-10-20

Rindfleish, Jennifer. (2005). Consuming the Self: New Age Spirituality as “Social Product” in

Consumer Society. Consumption Markets & Culture. 8. 343-360

Stoffel, J. (1988, October 09). WHAT'S NEW IN NEW-AGE MARKETING: Of Cash, Crystals

and Consumerism.The New York Times. Retrieved May 30, 2020, from

https://www.nytimes.com/1988/10/09/business/what-s-new-in-new-age-marketing-of-cash-crystals-and-

consumerism.html.

Wiedenhoft, Wendy. (2017). Consumer Culture and Society. Los Angeles. Sage Publications.

ISBN 978-1-4833-5815-4