Is New Age Spiritualism Really New?

Availability Cascades - Is New Age Spiritualism Really New?
“What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.” - Ecclesiastes 1:9

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(LAGUNA BEACH, Calif.) - First, ODD MAN OUT wants to assure readers that although not a Christian, I did spend the night at a Holiday Inn® recently that turned me into a New Age spiritual expert. And like every other self-absorbed American, from Baby Boomers to the present Generation What-ev-er, I didn’t bring a book so I perused the Gideon Bible when my wi-fi didn’t work and the Playboy channel was blocked.

Just kidding, I’ve never stayed at a Holiday Inn but I did like their commercials about clients becoming instant pros on any topic after only a one-night stay and some of that free watery mud they call coffee in the lobby.

Me, I bagged my own free copy of the Bible from a Motel Sex, ooops, Motel 6® while in an affair with a tall, gorgeous, zoftig brunette. I lifted it from Palo Alto facility back in 1969 while in the SF Bay Area for a wedding. I still have it today because I was always too cheap to actually pay for a stitched together collection of reminiscences and aphorisms, but it definitely helped as a reference text while a philosophy student.

I do re-read Ezekial, Jeremiah, Daniel, Matthew and especially Revelations occasionally because they’re so (pardon my pun) damned fascinating, plus they really do have some words of allegorical wisdom and sound, pragmatic life guidance---albeit in a truncated format.

Most of the present evangelical movement phenomena are heavy on the eschatological, end-of-times, rapture, we’re all going to Heaven or Hell, Armageddon is just around the corner, the Apocalypse and Final Judgment are imminent, the 4 Horseman are like the Lone Ranger saddled up,……Basically embedded in their selective, cherry-picked sections of the Bible, those containing hectoring yet visionary moralistic diatribes pushed as accurate prophesy.

New Age folks have switched unknown comets, runaway asteroids, climate change and current global strife for Pestilence, War, Famine and Death.

L Ron Hubbard of the Scientology Church

New Age followers don’t seem to want to admit that they’re mired in the same cyclical thinking mode, the same Manichean cognitive biases that gave rise to their parent’s fatally flawed belief system. You know, EVERYTHING in our world is a struggle, the old confrontational battle of Good vs. Evil, except New Age hipsters use Positivity and Negativity. The collective beliefs of today really don’t differ from previous centuries.

New paper, new verbiage so vague as to be insipid (“It is what it is”), these words and phrases that say everything and nothing simultaneously. Orwellian Doublespeak. Scientology® has proven to be a very financially lucrative attempt, obviously New Age proponents and EST entrepreneurs haven’t surrendered capitalism---Let’s get that “clear,” shall we?

Eclectic gurus of religious wingnut and waterhead churches like Eckankar® all claim to be the true path, they will assist practitioners on their mandated spiritual path. Most involve some form of communion or merging with the One. Eckankar jumbles Eastern and Western religions and terminology into a kind of philosophical gumbo soup. Like others, there’s a pecking order, Masters having alpha cachet, initiates basically donation and expenditure-free volunteer drones, employees the well-paid management betas.

Many religious systems have some form of cyclical or recalibration involving this One Being or Cosmic Consciousness schtick, be it Judaism, Hinduism, Buddhism or Islam. What’s happening right now is basically Religion Lite with few real sacrifices or demands and lots of teleological legroom---That’s what flying on the seat of your spiritual pants deserves if you’ve got enough money to hit the New Age circuit. Your seat is, per usual, 1^st Class, these folks don’t fly coach.

Bhagwan Sri Raj Neesh

Like all things American, it’s a fad, a groovy hip chi-chi gig that includes intelligent design, ascendant high masters and cosmic purpose. Yeah, and Namaste to you too Madonna! Years ago, when one of Hinduism most recent Svengali exports, Bhagwan Sri Raj Neesh rolled through my berg half of the clotheslines in town featured his signature color: Red.  Dyed shorts, socks, t-shirts, panties, all died some holy color of red hung out on clotheslines to proclaim: “Hey, I gave Him, Raj Neesh, my Master, all of my money and worldly goods but all I got were these cheap red skivvies!”

Today, in my hometown of 40 years after I landed, the one I call Looney Bleach (Laguna Beach) everybody and their mother is STILL fixated on mixing various yoga techniques, Pilates, spinning, weight training, meditation, free-form dervish dance, Native American shamanism, etc., typifying such a witches brew as a nebulous form of some new novel and insightful idea. Except it’s not---nothing new under the sun since Alistair Crowley, Gurdjieff and Madame Blavatsky got busy.

Mind, body, and spirit as an inextricable holistic concept were pragmatic aspects of Western culture dating back some 2500+ years ago, possibly originating in pre-Socratic Greece.

When I got here to Laguna it was “Wow, man, like what sign are you?” At first I uttered “Keep Off The Grass,” then morphed to “A Libra with a penis rising”---I got slapped at a marijuana and booze party early on for that one and retired it. Funny isn’t funny when you’re stoned on your feet and get your ass whacked by a 5’ 1”, 110 lb. hippie chick from New York. I finally settled on “Watch For Falling Rocks.”

The acolytes imbue this mixture of hallowed jargon exchange with highly evolved spirituality overtones in sotto voce, they aspire to achieve oneness with the universe via a complex algorithm (recipe) for personal success. I bet they sold 1,000 copies of THE SECRET here in Laguna alone. As if life were a competitive race, whoever becomes righteous (and rich) more quickly is declared the winner.

Higher planes of existence are achieved whilst they climb the ladder rungs to upper levels of awareness: The stairway to New Age heaven. The ignorant ones, the ones on the bottom rungs get diminished, pitied and marginalized---And they don’t get invited to those trendy house soirees at holiday time either Bubba.

For a group that gives worships things like those found in the novel “Be Here Now” (by Baba Ram Dass born Richard Alpert, Timothy Leary’s old bro’) there’s sure a lot of contradiction because most are Being There Then…Or should I say Being There Zen? The dualism of being in the now and yet anticipating, and planning on living in the future doesn’t appear to distract them.

It disturbs me that like fashion, the memes (cultural genetic themes) today aren’t really any different from the past, just repackaged with marketing value-add for the entrepreneurial capitalists who preach this wellness gospel.

Carl Gustav Jung

Superficially insightful, most take complex processes and allege simple insights for a few dollars more. I’m disturbed because I’m becoming surrounded by self-indulgence that isn’t transforming anything into a better world---Just people who feel better about themselves within that world.

Middle-aged, babbling blendoid botox babes, women who refuse to age gracefully, gossip at parties about tall muscular Fabio, their personal Pilates trainer who makes “house calls,” their latest expensive Bikram yoga class attire, in other words the same old dynamic: Their lives remain empty yet they try to fill them up with recognized name brands and trendy recreation that will be supplanted or superseded soon. Spiritual, Schmiritual..

Previously obscure and esoteric meditative terms now roll off the lips of everyone around here in their daily jabber. It seems to me that many just capitulate to appear au courant, knowledgeable and informed when they really don’t understand the philosophical nuances.

When you hear about Kundalini Yoga classes, if you have any inkling of what that entails, you’ve gotta laugh or cry. Papers and online ads abound for Kundalini, but who really knows, who has actually certified the self-ordained masters that teach it? Masters were supposed to be trained by other masters, the heritage passed down directly and intimately. 40 people rolling around in an air-condition health club or community center is antithetical, counter-intuitive----But yoga is now an entrepreneurial business domain, a cottage industry, a boutique style hip venue. Screw tradition.

"One often hears and reads about the dangers of Yoga, particularly of the ill-reputed Kundalini Yoga. The deliberately induced psychotic state, which in certain unstable individuals might easily lead to a real psychosis, is a danger that needs to be taken very seriously indeed. These things really are dangerous and ought not to be meddled with in our typically Western way.”  Carl Gustav Jung

Where neediness by a horndog dude is a turnoff for ladies in a bar, human individuals seem to have been born with a needy genetic predisposition: An uncritical “Go along to get along” logic. In cases like Kundalini, you should no more practice it without expert guidance than you should take prescription drugs without a physician’s attention.

Historically, Asian philosophic systems pursued wisdom and enlightenment, those interested were ascetics, they volitionally gave up the material world and financial gain to seek the non-mundane. Those truths were never charged for, they were and should be free, not cost you a $200/month membership fee. Or 10% of your income, or a crisp $100 bill in the church-tithing coffer. Whatever happened to Martin Luther’s Reformation movement, it was intended to keep power out of the greedy hands of the Sadducees and Philistines?

Did Jesus charge his followers, or Lao Tzu, Chuang-Tzu. Kung Fu-Tzu (Confucius), Mohammed, Gotama Buddha, Adi Shankara, Bodhidharma, Socrates, etc., etc., etc.?

For those with a memory, there were TV commercials that featured a well-suited and coiffed man bubbling “Take my advice. Hey, no, I’m NOT a doctor but I do look like one.” Or the famous “My fiscal advisor is E. F. Hutton” that featured people leaning in to eavesdrop on the confidential financial gossip between very two successfully dressed friends. Marketing (promising for $$$) higher levels of consciousness (if they even exist) is typical consumerism, a commodification of intrinsic values that shouldn’t be peddled like Tampax, Viagra, Depends or mouthwash.

It’s really no different around here than my high school days. Popularity, peer pressure and social acceptance are of the utmost importance, so repeating the new Age mantras is critical, tantamount to “For sure dude, totally,” “Very cool, sweet, most excellent” and other such imbecilic utterances of yore.

Wrapped in sophisticated-sounding paper “I’ve got to go, I’ve got an ashtanga yoga class in 5 minutes,” critical thinking is out, followers might not even fully believe in what they’re doing but their peers are in a “Monkey see, monkey do” mode.

Personal trainers, at least for a good physical exercise regime, seems friendly in comparison, a no-brainer. Ditto for physical therapists, at times the two are (if you’re lucky) intelligently combined in one person for those recovering from injuries----Or those who wish to excel. There are new techniques that integrate growing science information regarding physiology, nutrition and fitness regimes, especially for those who wish to regain some of their former physically-adept selves.

But “Life Coaches”? WTF, where are we as a culture when you’re so lost and hopeless/helpless that you pay some stranger alleging to be a guru to straighten out your personal life? It’s not like hiring someone to help you rearrange your closet more efficiently. These life coaches charge big bucks, so maybe, just maybe, like expensive designer drugs, this is The Creator’s way of telling you that you have too much money.

Unfortunately, this New Age (actually recycled or re-treaded) philosophical information is incestuous. It simply confirms and embraces prior preconceptions. Most followers are from mainstream religious backgrounds that were too narrow for their present lifestyle, they’ve exchanged specificity for eclecticism because it’s hip.

If an otherwise intelligent friend asserts that the Road to Wellville can be obtained by throwing money at and blindly following these gurus and their sycophants (fans), then it’s a really cool form of salvation, right?

If his/her eyes light up in ecstasy, they express some epiphanic or nirvanic experience led them there, then hey, it must have great worth or be true. This is a form of subtle alignment that leads to conformity, to sameness and intellectual dead ends. You don’t have to think as an individual anymore, just mime your friends.

And the new beliefs don’t really contradict the old ones, just appear to be futuristic and experimental. Nobody is dumping their operating system, just updating or upgrading it. Judaism Vista 7.0 or Christianity OS X Lion 11.0.

Take the most recent media fixations on extremist Christian  preachers espousing “The End Is Nigh, Repent!” crap. They even ask for money, but if the Apocalypse is at hand what good will money be?

Elizabeth Clare Prophet

Elizabeth Clare Prophet (Church Universal and Triumphant) epitomized this troubled clan. In September 2011, Prophet (posthumously) and several other prognosticators who incorrectly predicted various dates for the end of world were jointly awarded the Ignoble Peace Prize for "teaching the world to be careful when making mathematical assumptions and calculations".

The Convergence Crowd do have me surrounded but I haven’t succumbed. Yet. These people stir Western astrology, crystals, Tantric sex, tea-leaf reading, palmistry, numerology, and planetary alignments with things like the Mayan calendar, they somehow believe (and in profoundly hushed tones) that there’s something imminent, something about to happen here. The opposite of Christians, that the dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the potentially pacifistic peaceful world is coming to a theater and drive-in near you soon. Oooops, OMO forgot, like glaciers the classic Americana drive-ins are going, going, gone.

The Convergence phenomenon relies heavily upon various historical sites and artifacts to support their discourse, to prove Convergence insights and prop up its basic assumptions. They don’t address or even recognize the existence of contradictory evidence or discontinuity.

Machu Picchu, Sedona AZ, Stonehenge, and the previously mentioned Mayan calendar get thrown out as the apotheosis of proof. Never occurred to them that the Mayan shaman maybe ran out of ideas and/or space to carve, or simply thought they’d create a new calendar when that was no longer applicable---Like your hardware store on the corner. No, Convergents say that calendar predicted the end of our planet, the end of ignorance or the end of something.  Step right up folks, choose 1, 2 or all 3!

Dr. Wally Broecker

Back in the 50s and 60s, psychometric theorists like Joy Paul Guilford wrote entire books about intellect, focused upon convergent thinkers who were noted for being rigid and uncreative. They test well in standardized, limited formats like multiple choice tests but unlike divergents, don’t do well with those blue books and pop quiz essays!

It was economists of all people (Timur Kuran and Cass Sunnstein) who first theorized “Availability Cascades” in their fiscal projections and integrated the cognitive science research by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky.

Research psychologists, Kahneman and Tversky coined the term information cascade that also noted confirmation bias, inductive inference, and selection biases as bases for general population decision-making. Especially humorous is the amusing phrase “Representative Heuristic,” which one commentator typifies or basically translates as “If you can think of it, it must be important.” For all of our “I, Me, Mine” generations this is the Holy Grail of self-importance, it justifies self-indulgent and uncritical thought processes.

Wall Street ad brains constantly re-package brand names via re-invention and hyperbole. They create a chain reaction that invigorates old customers, bringing them back into the fold, and by integrating computer generated images plus androgynous metrosexual actors thus acquiring new ones. Integrating availability cascade tactics is simply an extension of that strategy.

So-called “Global Warming” is often cited as a prime example in availability cascade commentaries. It smacks of dire warnings, begs and pleads for immediate respite, mostly because so many scientists signed on. The etymology, the origin of the phrase, has been traced to a paper published in Science magazine. The scholarly work, titled “Are we on the brink of a pronounced global warming?” was published on August 8, 1975. The author was Dr. Wally Broecker, Newberry Professor in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University.

As a consultant, I get asked all of the time about global warming. I reply that climatic change seems a no-brainer as the Earth does go through cyclical alterations and fluctuations. In fact, change is all you can depend upon period. So yes, things APPEAR to be warming up but I’d rather everyone focus upon ways we can have less impact upon our local and global ecologies, slow our reproduction rate and natural resource depletion to more closely align with our planet’s carrying capacity.

We might be an exacerbating, aggravating factor in that dialogue. It’s like a polynomial equation, trying to solve, to track something extremely complex through numerous variables. It is interesting to read his subsequent perceptions about the concept. Note that he did NOT use the phrase “global warming” at that time:

“We have clear evidence that different parts of the earth's climate system are linked in very subtle yet dramatic ways. The climate system has jumped from one mode of operation to another in the past. We are trying to understand how the earth's climate system is engineered, so we can understand what it takes to trigger mode switches. Until we do, we cannot make good predictions about future climate change.” 

SOURCE: Wikipedia

French philosopher Blaise Pascal

I’m not saying that 100% of the New Age true believers who include this issue as a keystone in their philosophy are phonies, or that their yearnings aren’t legitimate. Many seek what humans seem pre-disposed to do like our species has since we first walked upright and gazed at the stars: What’s this all about? What is my role in this tribe, this universe or on this planet? Is there some other form of existence, other life forms out there? To what extent are we as individuals or as a species responsible for things like climate change? Is Death the end, nothingness beyond?

Obviously, fear of death and what (if anything) lies beyond the mortal coil, the veil, has been constant for humans. That fear has unfortunately driven many to adopt systems that deny the possibility of the “one and done” metaphor. Most of the people I know can’t fathom nothingness, a personal cessation or personal ending. I’ve always felt that the idea of a soul was really an attempt at immortality driven by anxiety. To me, maybe this is all there is.

Many among the Convergence Crowd are former Christian believers, some lapsed and hence agnostics, and like French philosopher Blaise Pascal hedge their bet (Pascal’s Wager). As pointed out by many subsequent critics, the main problem with his gambit is that it only offers heads or tails---Two choices, both predicated upon the Christian belief system. There are, in fact, at least four options: (1) A Christian God, with Heaven and Hell as polarized afterlives, (2) Some other god and afterlife, (3) Atheism with afterlife, (4) Atheism without afterlife. Therefore Pascal's wager is invalid as an argument because it only contained intentionally limited alternatives.

Catechism or Bible reading never fully convinced many Convergent Converts of an afterlife. So they project their anxiety onto the world. If they might be mortal and there’s no morning after, the existence of a spirit or soul that transmigrates is false, a dystopic and to them a depressingly hopeless future awaits. Egocentric as well as ethnocentric, they can neither fathom or accept the possible truth.

If everything they are, ever were, or their extended reproduced family ever will be, are impermanent and have an end, analogously the Earth must come to an end, shouldn’t it? Personally, I think it could be theorized that even bearing children is a genetic desire for immortality, similar to the theories espoused by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in his tome “The Selfish Gene.” In that context those of us who chose not to have progeny must seem an aberration, traitors to our immediate tribe and species.

Monty Python’s “The Meaning of Life” dealt with much of this in a humorous manner, especially the segment about Death being invited into a posh rural dinner party. These elitists just can’t seem to be willing to comprehend their own demise. If you haven’t watched it, it’s well worth the viewing. Profane, yes, but maybe all of this is really chaos and has no ultimate purpose.

So what? Even if you only get the one merry-go-round ride, it beats whatever comes in second, doesn’t it? Res ipsa loquitor (The thing reveals itself) as my blood brother Hunter S. (Gonzo) Thompson would mutter in a booze-fueled haze, through clenched teeth and cigarette holder.

Jaundiced, like Hunter S., I often think of and laugh at this pithy, cynical quote from Shakespeare’s Macbeth that never fails to piss off New Agers in dialogue with me:

 “And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death.

Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

FYI: If a project near you has some interesting enviro-aspect(s) that you think is/are worthy of Salem-News.com coverage and our readers attention, feel free to contact me with a very brief synopsis. Water-related “Blue Interventions” are my specialty!

Launched in 2010, Odd Man Out is the creation of Roger von Bütow and his OMO columns are written exclusively for Salem-News-com. Born and raised in the LA Harbor area, son of a German immigrant father, he's been in Orange County since 1966 and a resident of Laguna Beach, Ca. since 1972. In 1998, he began his professional career in environmental review processes (CEQA, NEPA, MND, MND and EIR/EIS). He's a rare mix of cross-trained builder, writer and consultant as he brings his extensive construction experiences dating back to 1972 into his eco-endeavors. He has tremendous field and technical expertise in successful watershed restorations, plus wastewater, urban runoff, water quality monitoring/improvements and hydrologic mechanisms. He's built everything from commercial spas to award-winning private residences, and provided peer review and consultant analyses for single homes, subdivisions and upscale resorts.

View articles written by Roger Butow Read Roger's full biography on the Salem-News.com Staff Page

His resumé is extensive, try an online GOOGLE search of his personal journey and historical accomplishments. His consultation fees are reasonable and if you've got a major project that alarms you, that needs creative intervention, then he's your man. His credentials and "CV" can be provided upon request.

Contact him at his office: (949) 715.1912 or drop him an email: rogerbutow@cleanwaternow.com

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the Ronbot Junter November 18, 2011 11:05 am (Pacific time)

The Holy Scriptures written by The GOD L. Ron. Hubbard The God Ron said “Never Defend, Always Attack”. He “thought” and then “Doctrine of Fair Game” came into being into this Sinful World to control it. He saw that people got sick and he claimed to all mankind. “That all illness in greater or lesser degree and all foul-ups stem directly and only from a PTS condition”. He saw that his claim that all other real causes of illnesses and symptoms, had to be suppressed, hidden and disclaimed from his Ronbots’ brains, so he needed a way to keep the fraud secret. So he claimed to his slaves that all the REAL causes of illnesses in the world were only an illusion and a deception created by psychiatrists to dominate the world in mental health and MDs in physical health. "So long as a physiological phenomenon remains the knowledge of a few and is denied to the many it can be utilized to control the many." LRH (from Journal of Scientology Issue 4-G from Oct. 1952) But the truth even though suppressed, has been exposed. I am the only living soul who knows exactly how his 72 hour delayed physiological reactions (restimulation) really work, and why it works and how to stop it from working or reverse it; that he has used to hide his physiological phenomenal secret, of a human function so old that it came before mankind could walk. He then ordered “Disconnection”, “Fair Game”, and also the prohibition and restriction of all Ronbots from reading, listening, studying or viewing certain channels or media, literature, or talking to us, to keep them ignorant. This God RON observed the physiological reaction of the human body and brain and then invented a religion, after he discovered that study tech and auditing, comes from physiological reactions. Then he invented the fraud called PTS-SP tech, as a way to control people and encourage the suppression and victimization of humanity. There is more fraud in Dianetics and Scientology that will be exposed. Always find the true and real source of all illnesses—The GOD RON lies. THE RONBOT HUNTER ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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