The Problem with New Age Spirituality
Graphics by Vanessa Vergara.
I remember beginning my “spiritual journey” as a junior in high school, after attending a yoga class my track and field team had hosted. I felt so light, happy, and relieved — all emotions I hadn’t felt in a long time. I ran to my laptop as soon as I got home, looked up books on Eastern Religion and yoga, and soon enough I embarked on my spiritual journey.
This was something I had to keep to myself: coming from a Latina and Catholic background, I knew I would receive backlash from wanting to explore something other than my religion. As I grew older, I became more open about how I felt about my religion, where I was spiritually and I honestly felt amazing. Feeling liberated felt so foreign but intriguing, and I never wanted that sensation to end.
I would buy more books, enroll myself in yoga classes and soon enough this cycle of “self-exploration” felt like it was never ending. The moment I went wrong was when I started buying tools to help with my journey without truly educating myself first. I fell into the habit of purchasing crystals, oracle decks, singing bowls, sage. . . anything that could be deemed a necessity for someone on a spiritual journey.
I never realized I had crossed the thin line between appreciating spirituality to appropriating it.
It wasn’t until I heard the term “New Age Spirituality.” Hearing it for the first time didn’t faze me — I mean, we’re in the 20th century, people and religions evolve, so “new age” didn’t seem to be so far off.
According to Britannica, the New Age movement is a “movement that spread through the occult and metaphysical religious communities in the 1970s and ʾ80s. It looked forward to a “New Age” of love and light and offered a foretaste of the coming era through personal transformation and healing.”
Graphics by Vanessa Vergara.
How could the idea of love and light being spread into the world ever be bad?
While the intentions are not, the outcome was. We slowly started to steal teachings from Eastern cultures and religions, and turned them into a profit. This movement no longer seemed profound, it just looked more like an industry ready to get its next big profit.
The New Age movement has become a trend and being “spiritual” has just become another label we can slap on. The reality is, nothing about spirituality and intuition is new. It’s exciting to see people shift towards an intuitive and spiritual mindset, but all that really is is us returning to our inner power and allowing ourselves to be guided by our intuition.
So how do we stop labeling and appropriating spirituality?
We can start by educating ourselves on how we may be adding to the problem that the New Age movement may bring. For example, smudging is an Indigenous practice used for purification during prayer and ceremony. It has become appropriated and traditional white sage used by these communities is becoming endangered. . . and the bundles being sold at your local Sprouts doesn’t help. Even though this practice is slowly becoming detrimental for the environment, the original sanctity of the practice is lost to white capitalist profits that have essentially been stolen.
This doesn’t mean you can’t participate in these traditions respectfully. Ideally, you can find a way to participate in a cultural exchange where you gain permission from that culture, practice or ritual!
It’s time we start being mindful about our mindfulness.
What is equally as important as considering the lineages of the rituals and practices, is determining provenance of any tools (oracle decks, sage, crystals, tinctures, etc.) we pick up along our journey.
Graphics by Vanessa Vergara.
Some important questions to ask yourself might be:
Where were these crystals mined or sourced from?
Were they ethically sourced?
Am I buying from a reputable source?
Can I buy from a local, independent supplier, versus one of the big corporations?
Does this feel genuine?