Customer Reviews

New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought (Suny Series, Western Esoteric Traditions)

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I have just finished reading this lengthy book after a month of heated night readings.

This one is really a milestone in the research of the new age phenomenon, as it is the first (and up until now the only) book to seriously and exhaustively research the variety of new age ideas, their inter-connectedness and their origins.

Haanegraaf doesn't leave the discussion on a sociological level, as other authors on the new age have frequently done. He isn't satisifed until he enters the core of every doctrine and theory and explains it thoroughly to the reader.

Haanegraaf covers an unusal amount of material over the 525 pages long primary text of the book. He presents ideas and comments about them briefly and concisely but also profoundly and always in an interesting and intelectually stimulating way.

The different observations and structures Haanegraaf presents in this work are bound to become a basis for future research of the new age phenomenon.

This is one of the best books i've read in a while, and a must for anyone interested in New Age.

This book is a MUST READ for any student of religious studies. Its provides a consolidation and analysis of the new age literature. Extensive use of references and footnotes - you won't be disappointed...

Private symbolism and the dissipation of mystery are indeed connected. The New Age movement tends to make each private individual into the center of his or her symbolic world; and it tends to seek salvation in universal explanatory systems which will leave no single question of human existence unanswered, and will replace mystery by the certainty of perfect knowledge. The reader of this study will have to make up his or her own mind about whether the attainment of such knowledge would save the world or, instead, deprive it of all meaning.