The New Age movement united a body of diverse believers with two simple ideas.

First, it predicted that

a New Age of heightened spiritual consciousness and international peace would arrive and bring an end to
racism, poverty, sickness, hunger, and war. This social transformation would result from the massive
spiritual awakening of the general population during the next generation. Second, individuals could obtain
a foretaste of the New Age through their own spiritual transformation. Initial changes would put the
believer on the sadhana, a new path of continual growth and transformation.
Although most followers of New Age teachings believe that the new era is still to come, Benjamin Crème
announced that a world saviour, or Maitreya, would appear in 1982. The initial interest stirred by
that prediction waned when the Maitreya failed to appear, but Crème continued to use his organization,
Share International, to foretell the saviour’s imminent arrival.
Realizing the New Age
Traditional occult practices (e.g., tarot reading, astrology, yoga, meditation techniques, and mediumship)
were integrated into the movement as tools to assist personal transformation. Transpersonal psychology
(an approach combining Eastern mysticism and Western rationalism to understand psychological health
and spiritual well-being) and other new academic disciplines that study states
of consciousness encouraged the belief that consciousness-altering practices (such as Zen meditation)
could be practiced apart from the particular contexts in which they originated. Moreover, many other
techniques used to achieve personal transformation were enlisted in the effort to bring about “planetary
healing” and societal transformation.
The movement also spoke to the sick and psychologically wounded, especially those who had been
unable to find help though traditional medicine and psychotherapy. Aligning themselves with
the Holistic Health movement—which advocated alternative and natural healing practices such
as massage, natural food diets, chiropractic, and acupuncture—believers in the New Age promoted
spiritual healing. They also sought the integration of older divinatory practices (astrology, tarot, and I
Ching) with standard psychological counseling.
Two transformative tools, channeling and the use of crystals, were identified with the New Age
movement as it peaked in the 1980s. Many New Agers discovered their psychic abilities and became
known as channels. Either consciously or in a trance, they claimed to establish contact with
various preternatural or extraterrestrial entities who spoke through them on a wide range of spiritual,
philosophical, and psychological topics. Some of the beings who “spoke” through channels (e.g., Seth,
Ramtha, and Lazarus) became popular teachers themselves, and some of the more popular channelers
founded new organizations.
Drawing upon the myth of Atlantis, one channeler, Frank Alpert, proposed the use of crystals as healing-
transformative tools. He suggested that the ancient civilization had lived off the power of crystals and fell
because of its ruler’s unwise and immoral use of them. Crystals were thought to be great reservoirs of
energy and distinct healing and of transformative powers that could be released for personal benefit. In
the 1980s they were among the most popular items at New Age stores and conventions; however, critics
were quick to point out the unscientific nature of the movement’s claims for crystals.
Some members of the movement found support for their belief in their ability to transform
world culture in a story about monkeys learning to wash food. According to the story, reportedly taken
from the anthropological literature, a number of monkeys learned by example to wash their food. After
the 100th monkey had absorbed the lesson, all monkeys jumped ahead in consciousness and started
washing their food. The story turned out to be a significant distortion of the scientific report; however,
many New Agers believed that if a small critical mass of people adopted the more advanced perspective
of the New Age, there would be a sudden explosion of higher consciousness throughout the world. The
100th-monkey idea led to a series of mass gatherings beginning with the Harmonic Convergence, which
was a set of coordinated gatherings of people at various places around the world on August 16–17, 1987
that was designed to bring about a leap in human consciousness.
Post-New Age
By the end of the 1980s, the New Age movement had lost its momentum. Although primarily a religious
movement, it was derided for its acceptance of unscientific ideas and practices (especially its advocacy of
crystals and channeling). Then Spangler, Los Angeles publisher Jeremy Tarcher, and the editors of
several leading New Age periodicals announced that although they still adhered to the goals of personal
transformation, they no longer believed in the coming New Age. By the mid-1990s, it was evident that
the movement was dying, and New Agers in Europe began to speak of the move from “New Age to Next
Stage.”
The New Age movement proved to be one of the West’s most significant religious phenomena of the 20th
century. It improved the image of older esoteric religious groups, which continue to be referred to as the
New Age community, and allowed many of its largest groups to find a place in the West’s increasingly
pluralistic culture. Although its vision of massive social transformation died, the movement attracted
hundreds of thousands of new adherents to one branch or other of the Western esoteric-metaphysical
tradition. More than one-fifth of adults in the West give credence to astrology; an equal number have
practiced some form of meditation. Three to five million Americans identified themselves as New Agers
or as accepting the beliefs and practices of the New Age movement in the late 1980s. The continuing
presence of New Age thought in the post-New Age era is evident in the number of New Age bookstores,
periodicals, and organizations that continued to be found in nearly every urban centre.

Tajong-gyo, modern Korean millenarian sect that originated in the late 19th century. Tajong-gyo was
formulated by Na Chul. It worships the Lord, the Light, or the Progenitor of the Heaven. The triune deity
consists of Great Wisdom, Power, and Virtue, which are parallel to the mind, body, and breath of
humanity. The union and harmony of the Heavenly Trinity with the trinity of humanity, adherents
believe, will renew humanity and reform society. The trichotomy of man, his universe, and its pursuit of
ultimate harmony in terms of yin-yang theory was derived mainly from Neo-Confucianism.

ECKANKAR (ECK), a Westernized version of the Punjabi Sant Mat or Radha Soami Satsang spiritual
tradition. ECKANKAR was founded in 1965 by Paul Twitchell (c. 1908–71).
The Sant Mat tradition was established by Param Sant Ji Maharaj (1818–78), who taught surat
shabd yoga, the yoga of the “Sound Current.” He believed that the universe was created by a series of
sound waves emanating from the transcendent Divine and that, as the Divine Sound Current descended
into the realm of matter, it became imprisoned. Humans, according to his teachings, are sparks of God
trapped in a cycle of reincarnation who nonetheless can return to God by listening to the Divine Sound
and repeating the Divine Names (mantras). Practitioners of Sound Current yoga require the assistance of a
master who has already transversed the levels of reality between the material world and God.
Twitchell was a student of Kirpal Singh (1896–1974), one of the master teachers of surat shabd yoga who
claimed to be spiritual descendants of Param Sant Ji Maharaj. Twitchell believed that Sound Current yoga
had existed since antiquity and that his knowledge and his teaching authority stemmed not from Kirpal
Singh (who visited the United States in 1955 and 1964) but from an ancient lineage of ECK masters of
which he was the 971st. Moreover, he claimed he was taught directly by two masters who were no longer
in their bodies, Rabazar Tarzs and Sudar Singh.
Drawing on what he had learned but dropping the Indian cultural trappings, Twitchell offered students a
means of “soul transcendence” through techniques that placed them in contact with the Divine Light and
Sound. ECK departed from Sant Mat by multiplying the number of spiritual exercises and adding many
more temporal concerns (healing, harmony, and problem solving). Twitchell also rejected the Sant Mat
ideal of ultimate oneness with God, suggesting that the goal of life is to become a “coworker” with God.
When Twitchell died in 1971, he was succeeded by Darwin Gross, who in 1981 passed his authority
to Harold Klemp. Shortly after Klemp assumed authority, religious studies scholar David Christopher
Lane charged that Twitchell had falsified much of his account of the origin of ECK. Klemp later
acknowledged some truth in Lane’s accusations but asserted that the essential truth of ECK was
unaffected. Shortly thereafter, he oversaw the movement of ECK from San Francisco to
suburban Minneapolis, Minnesota, where a headquarters and temple complex were constructed. By the
late 1990s there were 367 ECK centres worldwide, of which 164 were in the United States. Estimates
placed total membership at 50,000.