New Age Beliefs Are Not Evil
Here we go again. Jules Evans has written another article trying to demonise New Age beliefs. A few months ago he wrote one called Conspirituality’ — the overlap between the New Age and conspiracy beliefs. I responded and argued against what he was saying in this article.
In this new article he is now trying to connect New Age beliefs with the Nazis: Nazi Hippies: When the New Age and Far-Right Overlap. In both titles he uses the word ‘overlap’, as if there were some actual meaningful connection between the two worldviews. He treats us to a list of things the Nazis believed in: astrology, dowsing/divining, ley lines, alternative medicine, holism, parapsychology, mind-altering drugs, occult theories along the lines of Theosophy, eastern religions, yoga, organic farming, nature-worship.
Now, I don’t know what readers think about all these things, possibly that they are flaky, delusional, mumbo-jumbo, or pseudoscience. Anyone is entitled to hold such opinions. There is, however, nothing inherently evil about any of them. I for one believe in, or am at least sympathetic to, most of these items. So what, one might ask, is the purpose of Evans’ article? At one point he says, “if this all makes Nazis sound a bit like a New Age cult…”, so we can perhaps assume that this is what he is intending. Right at the end, however, he says: “I am not claiming that New Age spirituality inevitably leads to extremist politics. There are plenty of New Age centrist liberals, who are… into critical thinking and democratic processes. I try to achieve that balance myself”. So again, what exactly is his point? He is himself saying that there is no intrinsic connection between the New Age and the Nazis, since more reasonable people believe the same ideas. So he is in effect arguing against himself when he says that “Theosophy was also popular with progressives”, and that “Greens today who think all we need to save the world is a ‘paradigm shift’ to an ecocentric world-view should realize you can hold such a view and also be a fascist”. OK, but so what? How does it affect anybody if they know that some evil people share their views on some subject? Is anyone going to stop believing in parapsychology, just because the Nazis also believed in it? He is conceding that there is no direct relationship between New Age thinking and the Nazis, whom he says were in favour of organic farming, and passed legislation to protect forests and rivers. So they did perhaps have one good point.
It should be obvious to anyone that knowledge is neutral and that it can be used for good or evil purposes, hence in occult circles the terms White Magic and Black Magic. For example, it is well known that psychedelic drugs like LSD and ayahuasca can induce profound, life-changing spiritual experiences, and therefore be a great force for good. The Nazis, however, “were the first government to back psychedelic research, experimenting with mescaline on camp inmates to see if it could be used to break their will”.
If Evans has anything meaningful to say against New Age beliefs, then why doesn’t he come out with it, instead of trying to tarnish them by this association with the Nazis. It would be a far better use of his time to attempt to disprove them, if that is what he believes. Then we could argue against what he says, instead of reading these pointless insinuations.
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I hope you have enjoyed this article. I have written in the past about other topics, including spirituality, metaphysics, Christianity, psychology, science, politics, and astrology. All these articles are on Medium, but the simplest way to see a guide to them is to visit my website (click here and here).
