The New Age Movement: the Celebration of the Self and the sacralization of Modernity

This work offers a sociological reading of the New Age Movement. There are many case studies and discussions of the various strands of New Age thinking which are offered interpretation in the light of both classical as well as contemporary social theory. This fully-documented volume provides balanced consideration of a spiritual, "inner-directed" movement which has broken with the moral heritage bequeathed to us as part of our modernity. This disjuncture - this de-traditionalization - is a major figuration in Heelas's narrative and is found at the heart of the most recent European social theory. The refusal to sit on the conveyor belt of modernity links the new age idea to that other paradigm of refusal - late - or post-modern fragmentation. This book serves as a starting point, as well as a mature contribution to the sociology of new religious movements. It should be useful as a core text for courses on new religious movements and sociology of religion, and should be of interest to theology students, clergy and new age activists alike.