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The New Age Movement is a range of spiritual practices and beliefs that rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consider it a religious movement, its adherents typically see it as spiritual or as a unification of mind, body, and spirit, and rarely use the term New Age themselves.

As a form of Western esotericism, the New Age drew heavily upon esoteric traditions such as the occultism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the work of Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer, as well as Spiritualism, New Thought, and Theosophy. More immediately, it arose from mid-20th-century influences such as the UFO religions of the 1950s, the Counterculture of the 1960s and the Human Potential Movement. It became a major movement in the 1970s, at which time it was centered largely in the United Kingdom. It expanded widely in the 1980s and 1990s. By the start of the 21st century, the term New Age was increasingly rejected within this milieu,with some scholars arguing that the New Age phenomenon had ended.

Despite its eclectic nature, the New Age has several main currents. Theologically, it typically accepts a holistic form of divinity that pervades the universe, including human beings themselves, leading to a strong emphasis on the spiritual authority of the self. This is accompanied by a common belief in a variety of semi-divine non-human entities such as angels, with whom humans can communicate, particularly by channeling through a human intermediary. Typically viewing history as divided into spiritual ages, a common New Age belief posits a forgotten age of great technological advancement and spiritual wisdom that declined into periods of increasing violence and spiritual degeneracy, which will now be remedied by the emergence of an Age of Aquarius, from which the milieu gets its name. There is also a strong focus on healing, particularly using forms of altenative medicine, and an emphasis on unifying science with spirituality.

The dedication of New Agers varies considerably, from those who adopt a few of New Age ideas and practices to those who fully embrace and dedicate their lives to it. From the 1990s onward, the New Age became the subject of research by academic scholars of religious studies. Yet it remains among the most disputed of categories in the study of religion. There is no central authority that can determine what counts as New Age and what does not. Many of those groups and individuals who could analytically be categorised as part of the New Age do not apply the term New Age in reference to themselves.

1960s

From a historical perspective, the New Age phenomenon is most associated with the counterculture of the 1960s. According to author Andrew Grant Jackson, Beatle member George Harrison's adoption of Hindu philosophy and Indian instrumentation in his songs with the Beatles in the mid-1960s, together with the band's highly publicised study of Transcendental Meditation, "truly kick-started" the Human Potential Movement that subsequently became New Age. The term 'Age of Aquarius' ----used in reference to a coming era--- was found within the counterculture, for instance on adverts for the Woodstock festival of 1969, and in the lyrics of “Aquarius", the opening song of the 1967 musical Hair. This decade also witnessed the emergence of a variety of new religious movements in the United States, creating a spiritual milieu from which the New Age drew upon; these included the San Francisco Zen Center, Transcendental Meditation, and the Hare Krishna Movement. George Harrison’s songs My Sweet Lord and Jaya Shri Krishna, together with his production of the band Radha Krishna Temple and their song Govindam, are examples of musical contributions that created the spiritual milieu.

Channeling

New Age literature often refers to benevolent non-human spirit-beings who are interested in humanity's spiritual development; these are often referred to as angels or spiritual guides. New Age angelology is nevertheless unsystematic, reflecting the idiosyncrasies of individual authors. The figure of Christ is often mentioned as a mediating principle between divinity and humanity, as well as an exemplar of a spiritually advanced human being.

A core belief in Channeling is frequent in the New Age millieu. It's the idea that humans beings, sometimes in a state of trance, can act "as a channel of information from sources other than their normal selves".

A notable channeler in the early 1900s was Rose Edith Kelly, wife of the occultist Alister Crowley. Another famous channeler in the early 1900s was Edgar Cayce, who was said to channel his higher self while in a trance-like state.

In the later half of the 20th century, Western mediumship developed in two different ways. One type involved clairaudience, in which the medium is said to hear spirits and relay what they hear to their clients. The other is a form of channeling in which the medium purports to leave their body allowing a spirit entity to borrow it and speak through them. The medium appears to enter into a cataleptic state, and the intonation of the voice may also change completely.

For many New Agers, some channeled messages rival world scriptures as sources of spiritual authority. Although the concept of channeling from discarnate entities has links to Spiritualism and spychical research, the New Age does not endorse their emphasis on proving the existence of life after death, nor share their focus of testing mediums for consistency.

Eclecticism and self-spirituality

The New Age places strong emphasis on the idea that individuals and their own experiences are the primary source of authority on spiritual matters. This reflects a world-view that is "radically democratic". This emphasis has led to ethical disagreements; some New Agers believe that helping others is beneficial while others hold that it encourages dependency and conflicts with a reliance on the self. In both cases personal growth is always emphasised.

New Age religiosity is typified by its eclecticism, generally holding that there is no one true way to pursue spirituality. New Agers develop their own worldview "by combining bits and pieces to form their own individual mix", seeking  a spirituality without borders or confining dogmas. This approach has generated a common jibe that New Age represents "supermarket spirituality”, subscribing to a belief in a free market of spiritual ideas akin to free market in economics. As part of their eclecticism, New Agers, albeit being predominantly white Westerners, draw ideas from many different cultural and spiritual traditions from across the world, often legitimising their adhering to an underlying global unity. 

Theology, cosmogony, and cosmology

A belief in divinity is integral to New Age ideas, although understandings of this Divinity vary. New Age theology exhibits an inclusive and universalistic approach that accepts all personal perspectives on the divine as equally valid. This intentional vagueness also reflects the idea that divinity cannot be comprehended by the human mind or language. New Age literature nevertheless displays recurring traits in its depiction of the divine: the first is the idea that it is holistic ---its parts are interconnected and can be explained only by reference to the whole--- thus frequently being described with such terms as an "Ocean of Oneness", "Infinite Spirit", "Primal Stream", "One Essence", and "Universal Principle". A second trait is the characterisation of divinity as "Mind", "Consciousness", and "Intelligence", while a third is the description of divinity as a form of "energy". A fourth trait is the characterisation of divinity as a "life force", the essence of which is creativity, while a fifth is the concept that divinity consists of love.------------>>