Is this a "New Age" book?
The concept of an "age", such as the Dark Ages or the Golden Age of Television (pardon the similarity), is usually attributed by historians to a definite period of the past, and is done so only after a certain amount of time has elapsed. This passage of time is necessary in order to gain a clear and unbiased impression of the period in question (with the possible exception of the Golden Age of Television). Add to this the fact that at the dawn of any past age, no one was aware that they were entering it at the time, and the reality of it wasn't apparent until quite some time afterwards.
This being the case, you'd think it fairly obvious to most people that anyone declaring the advent of a "New Age" is either jumping the gun or trying to sell something to the ones who are jumping the gun.
This is precisely what the whole New Age phenomenon has become: one big psychic flea market. For the last decade we've been inundated by crystal hawkers, rune-readers, high colonic hosers, trance channelers, as well as a million books about everything under the sun but the real stuff we need to know. And still it goes on.
It is due in part to this atmosphere of gobbledygook that I decided to write this book, a self-proclaimed "Ancient Age" book of information that's 100% guaranteed old news. Because it is precisely those ancient teachings of bygone civilizations, the Wisdom of the Ages as it were, that we need to rediscover.
As Marie Antoinette, that most quotable of soon-to-be-beheaded monarchs, put it, "There is nothing new save that which has been forgotten". Or, more simply, "There is no new thing under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9). These quotes apply particularly to the New Age movement. Did you know, for example, that a very similar cultural phenomenon was occurring in Europe and the U.S. over a century ago?
Around about the 1870's and on up through the turn of the century there emerged a movement known as Spiritualism. It was focused on the seance experience, particularly on the procuring of a medium for the evening and watching him or her go into a trance state of some sort or other (sound familiar?). Very few of these "mediums" were in fact clairvoyant, the majority being merely refined, parlour versions of your typical carnival huckster.
There emerged from this movement one Madame Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, herself an extraordinarily gifted clairvoyant and former medium who had since turned away from her fellow spiritualists in favor of a more sober, intellectual approach to questions of the unseen worlds. She advocated philosophical inquiry and investigation in place of the mere sensationalism and phenomena-mongering which had become the essence of the spiritualist movement. She also issued scathing indictments to those who would take advantage of the movement to further their own selfish ends. Madame Blavatsky's writings on this subject are as applicable today to modern "trance channelers" as they were to the "mediums" of her day. These things are hardly new.
So to answer the question: No! This is not a New Age book. This is not to say that I don't believe we could actually be entering a new age, in fact I hope we are. But before we all start patting ourselves on the back and feeling good about our relationships with our crystals and that great $200 seminar with Lazaris last night, let's remember that there's a lot of work yet to be done.