New Age Religion and Western Culture
Presents the first systematic analysis of the structure and beliefs of the New Age movement, and the historical emergence of "New Age" as a secularized version of Western esoteric traditions.
Recent years have seen a spectacular rise of the New Age movement and an ever-increasing interest in its beliefs and manifestations. This fascinating work presents the first comprehensive analysis of New Age Religion and its historical backgrounds, thus providing a means of orientation in the bewildering variety of the movement. Making extensive use of primary sources, the author thematically analyses New Age beliefs from the perspective of the study of religions. While looking at the historical backgrounds of the movement, he convincingly argues that its foundations were laid by so-called western esoteric traditions during the Renaissance. Hanegraaff finally shows how the modern New Age movement emerged from the increasing secularization of those esoteric traditions during the nineteenth century.
Wouter J. Hanegraaff is a Research Fellow at the Department for the Study of Religions at Utrecht University in The Netherlands. He is coeditor of Gnosis and Hermeticism: From Antiquity to Modern Times, also published by SUNY Press.