Late-modern revisions
The New Age movement
A decentralised field joining Theosophy, alternative healing, channelled teaching, human-potential psychology, astrology and expectations of planetary transformation.
- Dates
- coalescing in the 1960s–70s – continuing
- Dating
- tradition or corpus
The life
There was no founder and no central organisation. Bookshops, retreat centres, small presses, workshops and overlapping networks mattered more than membership. Older Theosophical ideas about Masters and spiritual evolution mingled with postwar UFO religion, depth psychology and the counterculture.
Place in the tradition
It moved esoteric language out of lodges and initiatory orders and into mass-market publishing, wellness culture and ordinary speech.
a note on the record
History and later legend
New Age is an umbrella term used both within the movement and by its observers. It does not name one doctrine, and many people placed beneath it rejected the label. The span marks the movement's formation, not its end.