The Next Age showed expression mainly in Europe to indicate awareness - is widespread among the new agers , both among outside observers - the move to a later stage of the phenomenon formerly known as New Age. It is certainly wrong to argue that "Next Age" is a label "American", since the United States this term is virtually unknown to the general public and used primarily in music, the rest coexists with other very popular shows like Next Stage ( New stage "), Next Edge (" new angle ") and other terms yet (the one used in the United States," Ascension, "referring to the rise of the individual to a higher state, unlikely to spread in Catholic countries, where would be confused with the liturgical feast). The term "Next Age" has established itself instead mainly in continental Europe. Even in Italy the word "Next Age" - more easily understood and translated - had happened between them first new ager . The Next Age can be described as the passage of the New Age from third to first person singular. For the Next Age of Planet Earth, as a whole, will (or has already entered) in an age of greater awareness, happiness, well-being. After the disappointment of the Next Age admits that perhaps for the Planet Earth, or for society as a whole, is not in sight any joyful transformation. Things, indeed, may even worsen. The single, however, can enter into his personal and New Age to reach a higher state of prosperity, health, satisfaction (also on the sexual level, which in the Next Age is often in the foreground). The company may also go to ruin, but the individual who has access to certain techniques will still its golden age in a very personal and private.
As noted acutely J. Gordon Melton, this step is accompanied by statements - by some major spokesman for the New Age (but not all) - that, in fact, the New Age has never promised social transformation, global or worldwide. In New Age, the important element was always the individual transformation. It is, in fact, a simple trick : a look at the surface in New Age literature in the 1980s and (especially) 1970 shows a strong charge of progressive millennialism. Abandonment of the utopian stage in folding and individualism - with accents often narcissistic - the Next Age "is actually" new "and different from the New Age. The Next Age, of course, is not new if you look at the techniques and basic ideas, which remain largely the same. It is also true that the Next Age - or the stage of individualistic New Age - is, in turn, guaranteed and validated by channeling , in particular through entities called "Pleiadians" who came forward with a plurality of "channels" whose messages are typical of the new phase, and the content of the other becomes less and less optimistic in recent years, as a big conspiracy complaint entities rivals "Reptilian" which would be linked to other plots, including historians, on which there a wide and often delusional literature, the Illuminati .
The Next Age is always present in the current New Age, but a minority in the New Age "classic" precisely because it is individualistic, that it lends itself to accusations of selfish indifference (and not very "politically correct") against the utopian perspective, a global and comprehensive prevailing time. On the other hand, the Next Age then even older roots, among other things, the so-called "positive thinking" and self-help movement . A precursor - certainly reluctant and critical today - of the Next Age is an American psychologist, Dr. Morgan Scott Peck, went from Zen Buddhism to a Christian baptism "non denominational" received in 1980. In 1978, Peck had published a famous book, The Road Less Traveled . The text - expressing ideas shared at times, plain common sense - learn to focus on their actions and responsibilities, without worrying too much about the social context.
discipline proposed by Peck includes four techniques. The first is to delay gratification, "plan" the alternation of pleasure and pain inherent in all human affairs, in order to experience and overcome the pain first, so that in a second phase will remain only the pleasure. The second is to accept responsibility for their actions, without thinking that our actions are responsible for others or society. The third technique is the 'commitment to the truth ", but taking into account the fact that truth is a kind of moving target: the reality is continually changing, and so change the truth. The fourth technique is the equilibrium (balance ), which consists of being flexible and adapting to the circumstances - like truth - change constantly.
An important element in the volume of Peck is the analysis of love, which ultimately is always love yourself. "I never do something for someone else I do not first of all for myself "- teaches the American psychologist -" Another of the major misconceptions is that love consists in self-sacrifice [...]. When we think of ourselves as people who do something for someone else, we are denying our responsibility in some way. Whatever we do is done because we choose to do it, and made this choice because it is one that satisfies us more. Whatever we do for someone else, we do actually fulfilling our own personal need. "Although the author says that - recently - doing good to ourselves we also help the world around us, the essence of the message is strictly individualistic: you have to love yourself, you heal yourself, you have to center on your life, your well-being, your happiness.
In the same year the New Age said that the new was everyone would be happy now as a result of global change. Peck, however, overturned the speech, saying that there are people who have to change, and - maybe - change will come from this is also a social transformation. The American psychologist is not yet a member of the Next Age because - through individual transformation - the goal of social transformation is still very present, even the fore after the "non-denominational baptism" - whatever that means - that she would receive thanks the good offices of a Catholic nun in 1980. These themes emerge in People of the Lie of 1983, where Peck reads an original figure of Satan, and especially in A Different Drum , 1987, where the psychologist under the influence of the ideas of the former Dominican Matthew Fox - a key figure in the world of New Age - offers his views on the importance of community, from local up to the supranational. The most widely read and Peck's - regardless of later developments - still remains The Road Less Traveled, which can be considered a milestone on the road to the Next Age.
I bestseller of the mid-1990 in the world of New Age are, in turn, are transitions that announce the next turn individualistic. Thus, the Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield , 1993, may be is considered the apex of the New Age, and the proclamation of its crisis. The exegesis that the author himself or disclose the following Celestine Vision (1997) insists on the fact the transition from planetary vision of the 1980's the attention to self-care that is typical of the 1990s. Even in the novel The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho - passing, with good reason (and whatever you think the author) for a classic New Age - in a place of great historical and social context is given a prescription for individual happiness. The protagonist, Santiago, is called to realize his "Personal Legend", the prosecution - through attention to all the esoteric connections - is the only the duty of every human person. James Redfield, Paulo Coelho (who is considered by his Catholic rather a sui generis and states far from the new agers ) belong objectively to the latest generation of the New Age: a generation that perceives the crisis and that - while keeping our feet firmly in the tradition of New Age "classic" - trying to save themselves by insisting on individual happiness.
A character typically held in suspicion by the New Age "classic" - because of the individualistic and anti-utopian nature of his teaching - it's Anthony Robbins, who was trained in the unique area of \u200b\u200btechnical meeting between individual happiness and the esoteric that is Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) Richard Bandler and John Grinder (which is now known applications in areas far removed from New Age or by Next, which can not be considered separately). After meeting with NLP, Anthony Robbins in 1983 began to hold seminars characterized by firewalking, walking on hot coals (common in various religious movements and Magic), designed to convince participants that nothing in life is really impossible. The conclusion to be drawn is that each of us can do anything he wants, if he truly believes to be capable and if he can mobilize the magic that already lives inside every human person. Among its clients and visitors of his seminars - living or dead - Anthony Robbins quotes celebrities like Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Lady Diana Spencer (1961-1997), Andre Agassi. Together with Anthony Robbins, the figure is at the center of the Next Age is an Indian doctor - a resident for many years in the U.S. - Deepak Chopra, around which is emerging in recent years in the Next Age environment more like a real movement. Similar considerations seem to apply now for Louise Hay.
Finally, there is remarkable that, in Italy, some typical themes of the first New Age and now endorsed by the Next Age is often the primary object of the activity centers - while not referring to any specific doctrinal line and founding contributions of any particular new elements to the ideal level, but rather drawing from various representatives of the Next Age - present themselves as educational or training institutions in which, through courses and seminars, spread to a wider public teachings widely present in the same Next Age of the galaxy (from the motivational nature of NLP courses, seminars for the development of their potential to the various holistic disciplines such reiki, Bach flower remedies , and so on). For example, this is the case of Hi-Performance, which we will mention as a reference to the Italian activities Chopra, and Studio Pedagogy for Holistic Growth Staff Yangtze River - psychophysical Arts, based in Genoa (Via Anfossi 1, tel. And fax 010-413721, e-mail: info@artipsicofisiche.it ).
B.: To see a general introduction. M. Introvigne - PL Zoccatelli, New Age Next Age. A new religion from the '60s to today , Giunti, Florence 1999. For a critical perspective to see. Menegotto Andrea (ed.), New Age : "fine" or renewal? The origins, developments, ideas, the crisis, the "end" of the New Age and the birth of a new phenomenon: the Next Age. A new challenge for the Church , Synergies, San Giuliano Milanese (Milano) 1999; and Gaspare Barbiellini Amidei, New Next Age Age , Piemme, Casale Monferrato (Alessandria) 1998.
Source cesnur.org
