New Age Religion
New Age spirituality is a relatively recent, Western concept. This form of spirituality often involves the appropriation of many ideas or practices found in older religions, such as meditation and asceticism, and merging them together in an ahistorical belief system. Most new age spiritualists see themselves as “gurus” and use terms and beliefs often found in Hinduism and Buddhism, to name a couple, to preach a holistic view of spirituality and divinity that finds its roots in the same religions. However, the “gurus” give no historical context apart from mentioning that they are using practices or divinities found in a, usually, Southeast Asian religion. Lawrence Edwards, a “recognized expert in the field of Kundalini, our innate power of
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Walker perpetuates the idea that Kali is “the basic archetypal image of the birth-and-death Mother, simultaneously womb and tomb” (23, 223). Similarly, Edwards talked about Kali as “the archetypal power of creativity, giving birth to all forms.” Walker presents Kali as the “fount of every kind of love” and her blackness is as symbolization of the “formlessness beyond the veil of death; a psychic return to the womb, to be united with Kali’s oceanic being” (23; 224, 225). This is exactly what Edwards presents through his website description of Kali. She is, as he describes, the blackness that what we all return to when meditating. How is she this one and only primordial being that, according to Edwards, “infuses every cell of your body with Her power, radiance and love”? Neither Walker or Edwards tell the reader. She just is. She is a concept so they can use her as they wish. To Walker, since Kali is the archetype of everything, there is no such thing as appropriation and new age spiritualism is just using one of the Goddesses that belongs to it as an ahistorical concept. So Edwards takes advantage of keeping Kali as ahistorical, of treating her as the one supreme goddess of Hinduism, and purports her as this magnificent, multidimensional all-mother and wife to new age spiritualists that will help journey into spirituality until they become one with
Walker perpetuates the idea that Kali is “the basic archetypal image of the birth-and-death Mother, simultaneously womb and tomb” (23, 223). Similarly, Edwards talked about Kali as “the archetypal power of creativity, giving birth to all forms.” Walker presents Kali as the “fount of every kind of love” and her blackness is as symbolization of the “formlessness beyond the veil of death; a psychic return to the womb, to be united with Kali’s oceanic being” (23; 224, 225). This is exactly what Edwards presents through his website description of Kali. She is, as he describes, the blackness that what we all return to when meditating. How is she this one and only primordial being that, according to Edwards, “infuses every cell of your body with Her power, radiance and love”? Neither Walker or Edwards tell the reader. She just is. She is a concept so they can use her as they wish. To Walker, since Kali is the archetype of everything, there is no such thing as appropriation and new age spiritualism is just using one of the Goddesses that belongs to it as an ahistorical concept. So Edwards takes advantage of keeping Kali as ahistorical, of treating her as the one supreme goddess of Hinduism, and purports her as this magnificent, multidimensional all-mother and wife to new age spiritualists that will help journey into spirituality until they become one with