The New Age in the modern West : counter-culture, utopia and prophecy from the late eighteenth century to the present day

## Introduction: Future Dreams Th is book is about histories of the future. Modern western attitudes to time and history include two key ideas: one is utopian, the hope that a new and better world can be brought into existence; the other is dystopian, the fear that our own society, perhaps the entire planet, is doomed. Both are frequently linked to concepts of purpose, fate and destiny, in which history is propelled along a particular direction to a fi nal, identifi able end. Oft en, time's arrow speeds us in a defi nite direction towards a recognizable end point. In some versions history moves in stages, oscillating between peaks of hope and troughs of despair. At the extreme, theories of eternal recurrence dictate that history is destined to repeat itself forever and ever, without end, sometimes down to the merest detail. But always, there is pattern, purpose and meaning. I am concerned with a certain kind of mentality -or mentalities. 1 It is about longing for the past, despair over the present and hope for the future. It is about people who believe that ideas, rather than events or socio-economic forces, shape the world. And it concerns the belief that time moves in patterns, sometimes forever, but oft en reaching a fi nal end point. It is about a particular kind of what Hayden White called 'metahistory' -the idea of history as a single, all-embracing, underlying pattern. 2 History, in this sense, is directional, moving towards a certain destination no matter what people do. 3 As W. H. Auden put it, history is the operator, the great organizer of human aff airs, time a fl owing, refreshing river . 4 My title, Th e New Age in the Modern West , defi nes my subject area: the belief that either as individuals or as a society, we are entering a new phase of history. My subtitle is 'Counterculture, Utopia and Prophecy' , words with potent and contested meanings. Th e term 'counterculture' was fi rst used as a description of the youthful rebellion of the 1960s, but it has since become a general term for networks of individuals with particular social or political grievances which are set up in deliberate opposition to mainstream culture. A utopia, meanwhile, is a society which is either perfect or aspires to perfection. It may be of this world or it may exist in the imagination, but it always aspires to perfection. Prophecy, my third key term, has a double meaning. One is divine revelation -to reveal the truth is what the classic Old Testament prophets did when they acted as mouthpieces for God. Th e second meaning is a particular function of revelation, to predict the future. Th e prophecy I am concerned with is the focus of my main title: the prediction of a future spiritual New Age, one when psyche, or soul, will take centre stage. We may call this New Ageism. 'cut' that opens up and sustains temporality. 16 Th e Greeks extended the paradox into two kinds of time: chronos , which measures the passage of events, and kairos , which reveals their changing qualities. 17 Chronos marks calendar dates as days, months and years following each other, but kairos reveals the approach of the millennium. Human beings have an innate tendency to struggle to return to pure Being, at the same time as they are simultaneously trapped in the physical world of Becoming. True perfection, though, is beyond their grasp. In practical politics this tension translates into a tension between the idealists, the utopians and seekers who hope for something better, and the conservatives, the lovers of stability, who are happy with the world as it is. And the clash between these two is the driving force of revolutionary movements in western culture. Th e neoconservative philosopher Daniel Bell summed up the situation in the 1950s: Th e chiliast and the anarchist live in crisis, at the edge of History, expecting the world to be changed in a fl ash. Th e Bolshevik identifi es himself with History and confi dently expects that the turn of the wheel will put him forward, replacing the old. 18 Traditions of apocalyptic thought can be traced back to late third millennium BCE Mesopotamia and fi ltered through Babylon, Egypt, Persia and India to Gnostic, Jewish and Christian historical theories of pattern and meaning in history. 19 Christianity has given us a certain language associated with millenarian belief. From the Greek word "New Age culture is generally regarded as a modern manifestation of Western millenarianism - a concept built around the expectation of an imminent historical crisis followed by the inauguration of a golden age which occupies a key place in the history of Western ideas. The New Age in the Modern West argues that New Age culture is part of a family of ideas, including utopianism, which construct alternative futures and drive revolutionary change. Nicholas Campion traces New Age ideas back to ancient cosmology, and questions the concepts of the Enlightenment and the theory of progress. He considers the contributions of the key figures of the 18th century, the legacy of the astronomer Isaac Newton and the Swedish visionary Emanuel Swedenborg, as well as the theosophist, H.P. Blavatsky, the psychologist, C.G. Jung, and the writer and artist, Jose Arguelles. He also pays particular attention to the beat writers of the 1950s, the counterculture of the 1960s, concepts of the Aquarian Age and prophecies of the end of the Maya Calendar in 2012. Lastly he examines neoconservatism as both a reaction against the 1960s and as a utopian phenomenon. The New Age in the Modern West is an important book for anyone interested in countercultural and revolutionary ideas in the modern West."--Bloomsbury Publishing. Dedication Contents Acknowledgements A Note on Capitalization 1 Introduction: Future Dreams 2 End Times: Utopia and the Millennium 3 Enlightenment and Progress in the Eighteenth Century 4 The Theosophical Enlightenment in the Nineteenth Century 5 New Age and Transcendence in the Twentieth Century 6 Myth and the Millennium in the Sixties 7 Counterculture and Utopia after the Sixties 8 Remaking the World: Neoconservatism and the Global Utopia 9 Conclusion: Making the Future Notes Bibliography Index Future dreams -- End times: utopia and the millennium -- Enlightenment and progress in the 18th century -- The theosophical enlightenment in the 19th century -- New age and transcendence in the 20th century -- Myth and the millennium in the sixties -- Counter culture and utopia after the sixties -- Remaking the world: neoconservatism and the global utopia -- Making the future