New Age and Health

Definition

The emergence of religious, moral, and aesthetic sensibilities, expressed in the experiences of subjects and groups identified with the New Age movement, was related from the 1960s onward to the assertion that the ecological, consumption, and temporal patterns imposed by modernity had caused a state of disharmony between human nature, the planet (Gaia), and culture. In response, it would be necessary to develop alternative models of living capable of restoring the primordial balance between nature and humanity, and thereby improve health.

Introduction

Three aspects implicit in the above definition are central to understanding the relationship between New Age and health: (1) there is a deep unity on Earth that connects all the physical and metaphysical reality of the world in a single associative chain; (2) the original state of balance of this relationship was upset, above all, by modern Western culture; (3) the systemic nature of this unity of the world implies that states...