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The New Age Movement andthe Bahá'í Faith
by
 
Zaid Lundberg
Lund University, Sweden
Presented at the Fourteenth Irfan ColloquiumSponsored by the Haj Mahdi Arjmand Memorial FundJuly 4-6, 1997Manchester Bahá'í Centre,Manchester, U.K.
Direct all correspondence to:Zaid LundbergFöreningsgatan 18 BS - 211 44 MalmöSWEDENPhone: +46-40-234742E-Mail: lundberg@algonet.seThe title of my paper is
The New Age Movement and the Bahá'í Faith
and I would like to briefly share with you some reflections on this subject. (I must admit that, in researching thisrelationship, I was unaware that Dr. Udo Schaefer had made a similar investigation on thistopic in his
 Beyond the Clash of Religions,
and yet, in my "independent investigation of truth", I think we have reached similar conclusions. Yet, I believe that research on this subjecthas barely begun).I will briefly cover the following four main themes:1)
Why should we examine the relationship between the New Age Movement and the Bahá'í  Faith?
2)
What is the New Age Movement and how is it defined?
3)
What are some of the similarities and differences between New Age Movement and the Bahá'í Faith?
4)
 How may the New Age Movement be evaluated from a Bahá'í perspective?
Why should we examine the relationship between the New Age Movement and the Bahá'í Faith?
First of all, some authors[1]have associated the Bahá'í Faith with the New Age Movementand have grouped it together with religious movements such as Theosophy, neo-Hindu reformmovements and neo-Sufism.Secondly
 ,
it ought to be studied since some scholars of religion think that the New AgeMovement has surpassed
 
and outdated
 
Christianity as a belief-system/world-view in the West.Thirdly, if the above statements are true, and if we as Bahá'ís, are going to be successful inour proclamations and teachings, especially with reference to the concept of "Entry bytroops", I believe that it is vital that we understand this "new" world view.These three reasons, taken together, may suffice to persuade us to examine the relationship between the New Age Movement and the Bahá'í Faith more thoroughly in the near future.[2] 
What is the New Age?
 
In a very real sense, humanity is approaching not only a new century but a new
millennium
,so it is quite true, from a secular and temporal perspective, that we are living at the thresholdof "a new age". It is also well known that millennarian and apocalyptic movements flourish atsuch critical turning points in history.[3] The New Age phenomenon, however, has only recently caught the attention of scholars of religion. It has largely been ignored for two reasons: 1) it was seen as a "faddish" or appearedto be "shallow", and 2) it has no clear boundaries (as we shall see later on), and therefore,historically, it has been much easier to study, what has been labeled "New ReligiousMovements", since they are more easily defined and accessible for social research. However,some scholars maintain that the New Age Movement is a large "sub-culture" and that it is partof a much greater "cultural shift" in the West, and others have stressed that it is basically awestern "post-modern" phenomenon, while others state that it has by far surpassed and out-dated Christianity as a belief-system in the West. Others predict that the New Age Movementas a
movement 
is a transient fad, that it is doomed, but that its
ideas
may continue to influenceand transform the present society.
 How is the New Age defined?
The New Age Movement has, by a number of scholars, admittedly been problematic to defineand study. For example, it has either 
ancient historical roots
[4]
 
(in Hellenism 300 BC,Gnosticism 100-300 AD, in Hermetism 1500), or is described as a phenomenon that began inthe counterculture of the 60s-70s.
 
These extreme perspectives can be seen by the descriptions by two scholars in this field. E.g. Robert Ellwood sees the New Age as "a modern revival . . .of a long-standing tradition of what may be called the alternative spirituality of the west", andthat it can be traced to "the Greco-Roman world" via "Renaissance occultism . . . eighteenthcentury Freemasonry, and nineteenth-century Spiritualism and Theosophy.[5] This statement can, in turn, be contrasted with Gordon Melton who writes that,the New Age movement is a relatively
new
phenomenon. It developed in the late 1960s andemerged as a self-conscious movement in the early 1970s.[6]  It is further described as either a movement,[7] a religion,[8]or, as a quasi-religion;[9]as non- occult/non-esoteric or occult/esoteric (e.g. in Germany the term "New Age" has largely beenreplaced by the term Esoterik = esotericism or Ganzheitlich = holistic[10]); and that it centerson the Self/narcissism, (e.g. New Age has been described as the "religion of the Self"[11]), or that it is basically involved with a social/global transformation.[12]Furthermore, the NewAge Movement has also been defined by its own adherents. E.g. David Spangler [13]discernsfour levels of the New Age Movement as being characterized as:1) commercial (superficial)2) glamour and popular culture (media attention)3) "an image of change" (transformation/paradigm shift)4) the birth of the sacred and a resacralizing of life on earth, "new age is fundamentally aspiritual event"Thus, from this brief overview we can conclude and stress that the term "New Age" (like mostreligious terms and concepts) is multifaceted, highly ambiguous, and has many dimensionsand levels, and therefore is extremely hard to define.What are some of the similarities and differences between New Age Movement and the Bahá'íFaith? Nevertheless, and keeping the difficulty of definition in mind, Lewis has enumerated somegeneral characteristics of NRMs (as defined by Robert Ellwood) which he believes also areapplicable to the New Age Movement.[14]Let us compare these general characteristics of the New Age Movement to the Bahá'í Faith (a detailed analysis is not possible here):
 
Emphasis on healing:Healing is not emphasized in the Bahá'í Faith although the concept of healing does occur inthe Bahá'í writings, e.g. the Manifestations of God are sometimes referred to as "Divine physicians" and the revelation of Bahá'u'lláh is symbolically compared to an "Elixir".[15]It isalso recognized that humans can heal through spiritual means, especially through prayer.[16] A desire to be "modern" and use scientific language:The Bahá'í Faith is sometimes described as a "modern" religion, especially suitable for thismodern age, and that religion and science are seen as complementary is one of itsfundamental principles. It is the religious language, however, and not the scientific languagethat dominates the Bahá'í writings.[17] Eclecticism and syncretism:The Bahá'í Faith emerged historically in the Near- and Middle East, i.e. mainly within anIslamic religious context (both Shi'i and Sunni), although a variety of religions also coexisted(and still do) within this large area: Zoroastrianism, Judaism, Christianity, and a variety of Sufi orders. It is quite clear, judging from the Bahá'í writings, that Bahá'u'lláh was familiar with especially Islam and Christianity, but also with Zoroastrianism and, to some extent, evenHinduism. It is possible to point out both eclecticism and syncretism within Bahá'í, but this isalso the case for other religions.[18] A monistic and impersonal ontology:It is here where the Bahá'í Faith clearly differs from the New Age Movement, since the Bahá'íFaith ontology basically is panentheistic, i.e. God permeates the cosmos, and His attributesare reflected in creation, but God cannot be identified with, or reduced to, His creation.[19] Although God sometimes is described in agnostic or negative terms,[20]God is alsodescribed in personal and positive terms.[21] Optimism, success orientation, and a tendency to evolutionary views:The Bahá'í Faith may in general be described in optimistic and progressive terms but yet,there are also notions of decline, crises and even so called "apocalyptic" tendencies.[22] The evolutionary views are particularly strong and Darwin's theory of evolution is not denied butrather reinterpreted in, what could be called, a "spiritual theory of evolution".[23] Emphasis on psychic powers:It is not the psychic powers that are emphasized in Bahá'í but the spiritual attributes, which,ultimately, are a reflection of the powers and attributes of God.Already here, in this very brief and somewhat superficial comparison, it is possible to discernthat it is very difficult to ascertain if Bahá'í matches the New Age Movement. On some pointsit does, on others it clearly does not. Now, let's look at another scheme of what here is called by Hammer "An aerial view of the New Age Religion". (For the sake of brevity, I will not go into any great details here):Cosmos is an unbroken whole:There are a few passages in the Bahá'í writings that could support such a view. For example'Abdu'l-Bahá writes that:all parts of the creational world are of one whole . . . All the parts are subordinate to thewhole. The contingent beings are the branches of the tree of life while the Messenger of Godis the root of that tree.[24] There is a directionality in this wholeness:Teleological statements can be found in the Bahá'í writings.[25] 
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