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Books > Humanities > Religion & beliefs > Alternative belief systems > Syncretist & eclectic religions & belief systems > General
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.
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