NEW AGE

noun and adjective (Health and Fitness) (Lifestyle and Leisure) (Music) noun: An umbrella term for a cultural movement (known more fully as the New Age Movement, abbreviated to NAM), covering a broad range of beliefs and activities and characterized by a rejection of (modern) Western-style values and culture and the promotion of a more integrated or 'holistic' approach in areas such as religion, medicine, philosophy, astrology, and the environment. adjective: Belonging to, characteristic of, or influenced by the New Age approach to health, society, music, etc. Etymology: Formed by compounding: an age that is new. The term may be used to describe any new era or beginning, but, from about the turn of the century, it also became an alternative name in astrology for the Age of Aquarius, that part of the zodiacal cycle which the world is due to enter in the late twentieth or early twenty-first century, and which is believed to signal an era of new spiritual awareness and collective consciousness. History and Usage: Although New Age originated in and remained strongly associated with California and the West Coast of the US, its influence spread throughout the US and northern Europe and became established in communities such as Findhorn in Scotland from about the beginning of the seventies. Many of the various components that make up the New Age Movement--including the wide range of alternative and complementary therapies, the practice of Eastern religions, and the fascination with the occult and parapsychology--are of course not 'new'; and moreover, at first sight, they seem to follow directly from aspects of the hippie movement of the sixties. What made New Age different (and in this sense 'new') was that, whereas the hippie movement involved mainly young people and tended to operate in opposition to contemporary Western society, New Age was by the early eighties attracting not only an older age group but also middle-class people who had both money and status within society. Such people--some of whom were in fact the hippies of the sixties now grown older--not only gave the movement a reputation for being a kind of 'religion for yuppies', they also, by the late eighties, ensured its rapid growth and extraordinary success in commercial terms, whether it was in publishing New Age books on organic gardening or astrological charts, or in promoting crystal healing or water-divining. A person involved with New Age ideas was soon referred to by the agent noun New Ager. The general theme within the New Age Movement was that in the harsh post-industrial world of the late twentieth century, people had somehow become out of balance both with their own spiritual selves and with nature and the environment as a whole; this theme was strongly featured in New Age music. From about the middle of the eighties, this term was loosely applied to a particular brand of music that tended to be characterized by light melodic harmonies and improvisation, by the lack of a strong beat or prominent vocals, and by the use of such instruments as the piano, harp, and synthesizer. The idea was to create a relaxing or dream-like atmosphere; sometimes sounds were reproduced from the natural world such as 'planetary' sounds and the calls of dolphins and whales. Most New Agers favor replacing nuclear and fossil fuels with ecologically sound solar power which represents a kind of marriage between technology and spirit. Nation 31 Aug. 1985, p. 146 Most of them listen to New Age music--waves lapping, whales calling, amplified heartbeats and so on. None of them listen to the Beach Boys. Sunday Express Magazine 23 Aug. 1987, p. 30 So-called New Age philosophy has much in common with the worldmind and Gaia: the self is subsumed in the larger whole. Raritan (1989), volume IX, p. 132 Mrs. Brandon is less furiously New Age; her hair is frosted and shaped into a ladylike little flip. Perri Klass Other Women's Children (1990), p. 65