Group level

"You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, "What did that man pick up?" "He picked up a piece of truth," said the devil. "That's a very bad business for you, then," said his friend. "oh, not at all," the devil replied, "I am going to let him organize it."

Women's movement.

Ann-Christine Hornborg, professor of religious history at Lund University, is interviewed in Dagens Nyheter (2014-04-13): "I don't think women would have had the right to vote today if they had put all their effort into trying to get in touch with their inner self." (http://www.dn.se/kultur-noje/andligt-smorgasbord-eller-kulturell-prozac-den-nya-tiden-ar-har/, page visited 2014-12-19).

You have to be open and accessible. "If I'm happy, warm and loving and heartfelt, people are back. But if I'm angry and retire, they'll stay away too. You have a pretty direct effect on how you treat other people."

A woman tells the story of a man who shared a course. In the past, he had often allowed himself to be mistreated, but not anymore. I had bad rooms in a hotel. He told me and stood up for himself. "And yes, instead of being in this swamp, actually taking a new path and taking on the situation and doing something then."

The world recounts its enchantment.

New age/newness provides answers to much, it is an offer of a new paradigm, which, while considered superior to the prevailing scientific as the prevailing religious paradigm, is perceived as the discovery of the "urre religion" itself.

At the same time, Hammer (2004) highlights that new age/newness stands for a "re-enchantment" of reality. If something were to be revealed or could be fully explained by rational arguments, the interest would shift to some other phenomenon. "For the new age-interested, such phenomena point to the fact that the world is much murky, bigger and more magical than science tells us," hammer 2004

Hammer takes crop circles as an example of the "re-enchantment" taking place on the present-day premises. It's a game of thought about what happened 500 years ago, compared to what's happening now. , s311 The world reproduces its enchantment, in a reverse weberic process (Hammer ref to sociologist Max Weber, p310). "Man is no longer a deadly biological being on an insignificant small planet on the edge of one of many millions of galaxies. We have once again become heroes in a grand tale of life…", s310 Hammer 2004

Conspiracy theories.

Muertos (2012, January 28) quotes on his blog "Thrive Debunked" an anonymous New Age expert:

"I suspect that what's going on is that New Age, now entering its third generation, has developed a theodicy. Now, this is a theological term, but it essentially means an explanation of the existence of evil – why bad things happen to good people. For some of those in the New Age milieu – Foster Gamble, David Icke, Whitley Strieber, Duncan Rhodes and others, all incidentally in middle age and with a long term involvement in the New Age milieu – an explanation is needed as why, if we've entered the Age of Aquarius, is the world less peaceful, equal and progressive than ever? Conspiracy theories offer such a theodicy – the New Age hasn't happened because evil people prevented it from happening."

Where does darkness go?

Erikson (1982/2004, p. 81): "If the antithesis of wisdom is disgust, this (like all other negative opposites) must be recognized to some extent as a natural and necessary reaction to human weakness and to the eerie repetition of evil and deceit. If one completely denies disgust and contempt, it is done at the risk of covert destructiveness and more or less hidden self-loathing."

The interview material gives the picture of a world of perceptions where things such as suffering, evil and aggression have partly different meanings than the general ones. One question I ask myself is: Where does the darkness go? Here are some suggestions on this topic.

"As you sow, you should harvest," perhaps even the Bible expression "an eye for an eye, tooth for tooth" fits? Do you have a positive outlook on life? absolute. Mkt will happen! (e10) Is there a "residual post"? Again, the darkness.

"People." In-outgroup phenomenon. People who are not vegetarians, who are too focused on making money, or have not yet adopted a pacifist attitude. Or living a normal, unlit life. Marriages are in disarray. We will become androgynous, and as a result, neither are parents, as can be understood. Someone says about the fact that she hasn't become a parent that she's probably been many times before, so it hasn't been relevant in this life.

An excessive pursuit of the "self", as Erikson sees in the patients of his time, may be due to "a displacement of longing for children and a denial of the feeling of loss that ensed" (Erikson, 1982/2004, p.71).

"Conspiracy thinking." Examples from the material are about the media as "sheep cooks", nations' malicious security services, the Catholic Church to some extent.

"God's call." It can be assumed that the special form of god image that exists within the NA can also be used for this purpose. This god administers a rather stern world order, to which people have to adapt.

"The relentlessness of fate." The argument of absolute justice also contains a great deal of darkness. In reasoning, it is more often the "world" or those who do not yet embrace newness that are at the forefront of this principle. People need to get used to an "if-there-there-is-a-god-who-see-me" mindset and take full responsibility. "Don't bend your knee before God like an idiot."The suffering they experience should be borne with equanimity, as it is self-inflicted.

Here may be a kind of joy of injury that the world has a lot to go through before they will have realized the correctness of the new worldview. New age/newness is a belief in deeds (ref?)

"A coming world war." People should count on further world wars before an earthly paradise can be realized. Such a war will affect people differently, however, no one will "have to suffer injustice", which the law of karma is a guarantee of. The Nordic region will be relatively spared from these events, as people up here are slightly ahead in development.

"Violent reincarnation memories." This is something that has interested research in the past. Wikström (xx) writes: "Reincarnation memories are often violent…" There are many such dramatic and frightening experiences in the material, both where the person himself has been the one who has been the cause of suffering who has experienced this.

"The establishment." A kind of "light" version of the conspiracy theories. Those who have power and interpretation in the world are not necessarily studied evil, but only "undeveloped".

"The Church and the Believers."

"Cult of suffering." All talk of suffering is truly in contrast to the doctrine itself, visions of the future, the perfection of existence, etc.

"Childhood memories." Childhood is often, but not always, described in a conflicted way. Granqvist (yy?) has written about this in his research on NA based on AAI interviews. (The interviewees talk about their parents as if they were present in the room, he remarked. There are some examples of this in this material as well. In some cases, these are very vivid descriptions.)

"The environment, bad energies." The discomfort the individual experiences can be explained by external circumstances. Some environments have an "energy" that can make sensitive people feel bad.

Absolute greats.

NA deals with absolute greats. Kind of like the young man. There are perfect individuals (Fowler, for his part, puts some effort into describing that those who populate his highest stage, the "Universializing stage", are not perfect, they have their flaws, etc.) There are perfect individuals who have become it by their own power, whose disciple one can become. There is perfect, selfless love. Utopia is not unattainable, but a rather met description of the coming kingdom of peace.

Christians do not dwell in the same way on absolute categories, not as have to do with man anyway. Jesus is perfect, but not human, but an aspect of God. Heaven is a "utopia", but so obvious elsewhere, a mystery.

The New Age embraces these notions in a completely scientific spirit.

Please note that this is not a disapproval of NA. Perhaps this is what NA imagines. But in that case, it will only be even more enigmatic, and a relevant area of psychological scrutiny: How can the absolute and perfect cause suffering? (Except in narcissists, or to a lesser extent, because they are nevertheless busy on a perfection project regardless of religion, and also have good hopes of coping with this.)

Date of birth and name – numerology – it stands firm. What your parents gave. In the absence of another solidhe or unchangeable, as a stable identity, it may have significance. Various systems such as numerology or astrology, which are precise and unchangeable, as opposed to life that may sway. Interest in systems. Fateful wounds. Favorable dates.

Respondents who believe that postmodernism had its points, but that we will soon return to a "great theory", newness is the truth (crassly said), corresponds to the religion from which the world religion once developed…

"That the new worldview is too rational. In this blocking, it risks blocking access to one's own interior.

Normally one thinks that the spiritual stands for the fuzzy, that which also reaches deeper, the opposite of rational science. But that's not the case with NA. Here is something you may need to let go of, to gain access to your own interior. The doctrine is hard.

In fact, there is not much of the "gap" that Rotstein talks about (as Hammer refers?) Newness, unlike religion with its conception of God's "inscrutable ways" does not exist in the New Age (this is highlighted in the material also, as an example of the weakness of Christianity)… Nyandligehten is really "waterproof" and sturgeon, against both religion and science.

"There is a core of truth in all religion. Today sees that all these different traditions are very much aspects of in a way the same core (e25)

There is a truth. All religions have the same core. Everyone enlightens people understand each other, they just speak different "dialects"

Progress has a clear goal, where everyone is going. At present, existence, and human existence, is a natural hiearchy of individuals at different levels, and in different phases, of this journey towards perfection.

The Image of God

Maybe it deserves a piece of my own…

Like God to a parent, how would this be? (Granqvist)

If God were a parent, how would this parent be perceived? One might ask how such a parent can be subject to the individual's respect or sympathy at all. Discuss the concept of "identification with aggressor"…

Development is a ladder.

Everyone is on their way, and has to go through basically the same life phases and experiences. This notion fits with a rather modernist notion that individuals – and entire cultures – are at different levels of sophistication. This development is seen as sequential, coercive, etc. That is to say, it is basically the same for everyone, and everyone will go through such a development.

Speicell variant of reincarnation

The parallel with Hinduism limps in at least two respects. On the one hand, it is far from all Hindus who embrace a reincarnation and karma idea that even resembles the one that NA has. It belongs to a religious elite, just as there are learned, mystical parts of Christendom that believers in ours generally do not embrace or can account for. On the one hand, reincarnation and karma are something that has been plucked from a whole. The more camera parts, you might say. The fantastic and evocative god doctrine, which could probably to some extent dampen the harsh deterministic pressure, is left behind.

The West imported the more camera-like parts – and left the god doctrine, with gods to be appeased – which means that the parts lifted out do not become the same parts as they were in the original context.

This can be compared to the transformation that Buddhism has undergone. It has been "re-exported" to where it was retrieved, and contributed to a "Buddhist modernism":

(Sanner, 2013) One religion that has long been at the forefront of alternative forms of Western religiosity is Buddhism. However, the fact that there has been no simple reception history is investigated by David Thurfjell in one of the more readable contributions of the anthology. How can it be, he asks, that so many Swedes have an image of Buddhism as a peaceful and non-authoritarian religion when in fact it also contains violence as well as dogmatic and patriarchal elements? (Sanner, Svd, 2013)

(Sanner, 2013) The second reason, interestingly, is a change in Buddhism in an Eastern context. In several Eastern cultures, Thurfjell argues, strong impressions have been made of the Western image of Buddhism, which has contributed to the emergence of a kind of Buddhist modernism, which has several points of contact with Western religiosity and which in some respects differs from more traditional forms of Buddhism. It is often precisely the Western variant of Buddhism that Westerners become aware of in connection with Thailand travel and in other contacts with Buddhism today. This means, Thurfjell points out, that what many Swedes encounter when they think they find an ancient and genuine Eastern doctrine is in fact a kind of mirror image of themselves. (Sanner, Svd, 2013)

Karma

This is also an import from the East. Although similar thoughts seem to exist in the Bible and are part of our own cultural heritage. As you sow, you will reap. He who takes to the sword shall perish with the sword, etc. (Bible report). Interpreted differently here. Mercy and deed. With God as an intermediary. Karma as understood in the new age is more automatic, relentless. Problematize. Not so general thought among Indians or "Hindus" today. The concept of karma that the New Age encompasses belongs in advanced theological literature, a religious elite. The context is also another: in the East there is also a god world that possibly outweighs some of the harshness.