Whoo-boy! Now, with The Death of the New Age, even the Occultists have gotten into the act:
Cognitive dissonance. The phrase itself was invented to explain what happens when prophecy fails, leaving a landing site of believers, whether Jehovah Witnesses, Mormons, Cargo Cult or whoever, bereft of the promised miracle. The event is quickly recast with a new date, destination, or interpretation for them to cling to. Having failed, prophecy morphs and 2012 will be re-skinned to save the New Agers from having to face up to failure,...
…In celebrating, no, insisting on the death of the New Age on this pivotal date we can take stock rather than being part of another bahktun of empty platitudes and future promises. Let us understand that the New Age is spiritual froth, the scum on the surface of a toxic industrial culture.
I don't know about all that - Why does "industrial culture" always have to take the blame for their inability to cope? - but the rest of the quote seems right (The rest of the essay is of the usual rah-rah We Shall Cleanse The World variety). Plus, I'm glad they included Mormons, because it's always nice to discover I'm not off-track in my reading of who's who and what's what:
Something really may have come to an end last year - but it's the mystical world, not ours…
Let's hope so, but I highly doubt it: the abracadabra hokey pokey is a mighty intoxicating dance (self admitting my own addiction to dallying with it -- the only known cure I've found has been to snap out of it by remembering what I need to do today).
ReplyDeleteAnd yes, the funerary theme is appropriate for me: seeing as how I'm stuck in the middle of trying to arrange for my mom's burial (and all the lovely baggage the sudden death of a parent can entail, with a nice dollop of hardcore New Age/mystical/magical/evangelical types, both well intentioned and not so much). It truly is enough to make a person tempted to turn on and drop out...fortunately I need to pick up some livestock feed, walk the dogs, and pay the school for my kids' lunch money overage charge...).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUMDNDQJ_1k
It's what's for breakfast around here right now, on too many levels to contemplate ;)
PW
At the very least this new black theme brings some variation in color to this site -- and as an also admitted "color slut" I love the way new colors pop out (one of my fondest memories was when my dad bought 8 yo. me some really nice coloring books and the huge, 128 or something box of Crayolas for Christmas -- which I kept organized and memorized all the names of the colors and was horrified when my damn cousins got into them and broke a bunch...I was a weird kid).
ReplyDeletePlus it's easier to read.
PW