What is The New Age?

 

First there was the Beatnick who would sit in a pub full of darkly clad individuals complete with black berets  and dark glasses all snapping their fingers in rhythm to some very poorly written poetry.  The Beatnick movement started during the mid to late forties as a response to the end of WWII.  It was pseudo intellectual movement that included passive drug use and a cartoonish depiction of real people.  It was loosely based on the Spiritual adventures of Jack Kerouac as written in his autobiographical fiction. This was the beginning of the Drop In or Drop Out movement as taught by Alan Watts, and Timothy Leary both contemporaries of Kerouac.  

The Beatnicks slowly over the course of about 20 years evolved into the Hippies of the 60's.  This subculture, which I am a member, was societies reaction to the Korean and Vietnam conflicts respectfully.  It was a mix of the Bohemian culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and Eastern religion and spirituality.  The Beat generation became the beginnings of the Hippies and the Age of Aquarius was born.  

During and after the birth of the Hippie Movement there was a surge or a spiritual awakening of sorts.  A blend of all spiritual belief structures and movements from the beginning to the present system of spiritual progress.  The Western mind had come in contact with the Eastern mind and started exchanging belief structures and patterns.  In the West we began reflecting the spirituality we see in the East, and as strange as it sounds, in the East there was an similar reflection of Western beliefs bleeding into very old cultures.  

During this time there was a upwell in all forms of esoteric practices that still hang on today such as, Channeling of spirits, or dead folks, an upwell in holistic medical practices, and a turn towards more pagan or natural religions replacing Christianity, Judaism, and Islam as the main three.  People were tired of not getting the answers they sought and turned to other sources to find them.  

Some of our modern Gurus actually come out of the movements of belief before us.  They include but are not regulated to, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, Timothy Leary, who became Baba Ramdas, Terrance McKenna, who took off from Leary's LSD experiments and discovered what has been called the most illegal substance on the planet. DMT, a natural chemical produced by the Hypothalamus of the Brain.  Also found in plants abundant in tropical zones.  And of course the granddaddy of all, Jack Kerouac himself.  

The New Age was born.  An age of coming and going. Exploring and non exploring.  Finding and loosing the self, over and over again.  George Bush Sr. called it his prayer of a thousand lights, A New World Order.  

So, my Aquarian friends, tread lightly upon these new/old cobblestones, for behind every tree, every rock, every thought, there are Monsters that will take full advantage of those who have lost sight of the path. 

Peace and Balance,

John