Is New Ageism just, well... BS?

[Spamtek]

From. If my stance of utter contempt for movies the The Secret, or What the F*** Do We Know, and all this 2012 fantasyland bullshit, are mystifying or offensive to you, please take the time to read through or watch at least some of this material. All of these fairy tales are being fed to us by wealthy elites to keep us self-obsessed. When you’re working on your own personal evolution and getting in touch with your inner spiritual power, they’re continuing their campaign of genocide and global control, not to mention collecting profits off the DVDs and books you’re buying. The worst part is, these memes aren’t even lies—you really will be happier if you ignore all the evil shit going on in the world. You’ll also be acting like a damn child, and I have no respect for the New Age, sorry. I guess we could all argue about where the line gets drawn between the New Age movement and other movements, if self-improvement is inherently guilty of the sins mentioned or just New-Age self-improvement, etc etc. Whatever the terms mean for you, how do you grok them? Is it okay to serve yourself? Is it alright to ignore some evil in the world and turn to your own personal betterment instead, and is your own personal betterment just an illusion cooked up by people who want to sell you instruction manuals? I have a pretty vivid idea of myself cultivating the classic Rennaisance virtues, where I apply myself to a variety of different endeavors (writing, art, music, 3D modeling, cooking, lucid dreaming, meditation, strategy game mastery, physical fitness, etc etc.) and spend my life just trying to make myself better - always learning, always progressing, always becoming more than I was yesterday. Is that entire philosophy of living a lie, a misconception, invented by myself or others? Should we be trying to make ourselves "better" when somewhere in the world is someone worse off than us, someone we should be endeavoring to help instead? Or conversely, some oppressor we should be endeavoring to fight (corporate iron fists and the like)? On a broader note, maybe going beyond the idea of self-help and the new-age idea of self-focused "evolution," is new-age-ism in any incarnation just utter bullshit? Are fuzzy crystal-wielding spiritualists just complete loonies?

[Bonsay]

Nobody cares about other people. You asked if it was ok to serve yourself when there is evil in the world. Well let me ask you what are you doing right now, are you doing something to stop this evil? Could be, but mostly nobody does nothing. If people did something, you wouldn't be seeing people starving in Africa, now would you? Evil was always present, it is in our nature to kill eacother. I'd much rather like it the other way around, but what change could I exactly make on a world scale? The guy you quoted makes it sound like it's all something new, not only the new-age stuff (wich is nothing new), but the "evil" people also. Who would regulate the world population if we didn't have wars, and evil. It's all Ying Yang, and stuff... Besides the point I am trying to make, I really doubt that you could achieve anything, besides a positive outcome out of the movies (for example) he posted. It would make people more aware, it would evolve them from the "robot" state into people who actually care about things besides themselves. That's the real "problem" right now. If you are rich, it isn't really a problem, but more like super-cool. About your note. It goes into the "what I believe in" debates, because it's all relative and only depends on ones point of view. I mean, who do we think we are to call someone a "complete loony". The fact is that who is normal, good or evil is not really in our place to decide. "They" tells us and "we" take in what they have to say as the truth. How different are the fuzzy crystal-wielding spiritualists from christians or muslims? They aren't. So unless the world is ready to label itself as a loony facility, it should give everybody the same ammount of respect (?). So in the end, everybody is crazy and nobody is crazy.

[Roller]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with self-improvement. I think that trying to improve your own abilities and knowledge like you are, Spamtek, is hugely important. Does it mean you're ignoring the evil in the world? Hardly. The more you educate yourself and develop your abilities, the more chance you have of finding out about the world and hopefulyl doing something to better it. I don't necessarily think that self-improvement is 'new-age' at all. New-ageism is the sort of general belief in psychic powers, spoon-bending, inner 'energies', chi or whatever else. It's basically a belief in things that new-agers either think that science has 'yet to discover' or things that science is trying to opress. That kind of belief is bullshit.

[Universal Mind]

It is totally okay to serve yourself while you serve others. Be the best you can be, and help others be the best they can be. Making yourself miserable will only add to the suffering in the world, not subtract from it. Get as healthy, happy, and educated as you can, and do what you can to make dictatorships internationally outlawed so oppressive dictators and the poverty and genocide they create can become a nightmare of only the past.

[Never]

I believe self-mastery is the first step in any attempt to better the world. If you do not understand your own emotions, reactions, and programming, how can you advise others? How can you be cool when others lose their temper? If all it takes is a few well placed words to set you off, then you may as well not do anything at all. Just an example. We must understand ourselves and the consequences of our tendencies before we go about changing the world. Otherwise, you have the stuff that starts wars.

[TalkingHead]

There's absolutely nothing wrong with self-improvement. I think that trying to improve your own abilities and knowledge like you are, Spamtek, is hugely important. Does it mean you're ignoring the evil in the world? Hardly. The more you educate yourself and develop your abilities, the more chance you have of finding out about the world and hopefulyl doing something to better it. I don't necessarily think that self-improvement is 'new-age' at all. New-ageism is the sort of general belief in psychic powers, spoon-bending, inner 'energies', chi or whatever else. It's basically a belief in things that new-agers either think that science has 'yet to discover' or things that science is trying to opress. That kind of belief is bullshit. I think New Ageism is doing harm because they generally take Eastern religions and oversimply and misrepresent the teachings. They seem to be more geared toward practicality, but end up just being really flaky. I agree with Never's post but I don't think that talk of "energies" is bullshit. Everything meaningful that we do is an attempt to control our own or the world's energies. Sometimes its more useful to talk about things in less specific terms, but when it comes to changing ourself through things like meditation and lucid dreaming (both of which I resent being taken over by the New Agers) the focus really is on our energy.

[Never]

I think New Ageism is doing harm because they generally take Eastern religions and oversimply and misrepresent the teachings. Well said. While I do not in any way have a "problem" with New Age stuff, I do believe that those who talk about it should at least give references as to where this stuff comes from. It can be a great waste of time to a person who seeks to meditate without knowing about the core of meditation: concentration, or a person who seeks to astral project, but knows nothing of lucid dreaming. AP is only an interpretation of an experience, and lucid dreaming is proven. It's like building a car without an engine. One is required to believe in all these wild ideas without even being shown the front door.

[Neruo]

New Age-ism is big, fat, bullshit. But I rather see idiots squander their money on homeopathic pieces of gravel then feeding it into a religious propaganda machine.