Spirituality
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Spirituality is more than just religion - you can be a spiritual humanist, or be spiritual without subscribing to any religious belief.
Spirituality for me entails a belief that the Universe is a living organism - that we are not separate from the Universe, not individual, but that we ARE in some sense the Universe. Many religions share this belief, too: Judaism takes this approach in the Qabalah, Islam in its Sufi outlook, mystical Christianity and Buddhism, and many modern Pagans would also share the same viewpoint, seeing the Earth at any rate as being a living organism. Philosophical systems such as Taoism share this belief, and even modern cosmology is coming to the same conclusion! |
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The term "New Age" has been bandied about a lot in recent years, but there is no one "New Age" religion or philosophy. The term "New Age" simply refers to the fact that we are coming into the Age of Aquarius (this is an astronomical term - because the Earth wobbles on its axis, the signs of the zodiac shift over the millennia, and this wobble is now pushing the position astronomers call "the first point of Aries" into the constellation of Aquarius). The sign of Aquarius in astrology is associated with spiritual wisdom and psychic pursuits, and hence the term "New Age" to refer to these areas.
People who are classified as having "New Age" beliefs hold a wide variety of beliefs - some of them very ancient beliefs indeed, far older than Christianity - but most do share the core belief outlined above. These traditions include - but are certainly not limited to - the following:
Paganism, which reveres the Earth, and relates to various spirits and deities connected with Nature
Shamanism, which has a similar respect for the Earth, and particularly animal spirits, and achieving altered states of consciousness
Taoism, an ancient Chinese philosophy based on "going with the flow" - the Tao - of the Universe
Mystical Judaism, which by striving to return to Kether acknowledges a single source beyond the conventional teachings of Judaism
