Hi Khem,
Thanks for this - the Whole Earth catalogue reference to Alice Bailey is an interesting one, which I shall follow up.
I have all the academic works on New Age - two of my PhD supervisors were Michael York and Marion Bowman, so I was deeply immersed in New Age scholarship.
Very best,
Nick
-----Original Message-----
From: Society for The Academic Study of Magic [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of [log in to unmask]
Sent: 04 August 2014 23:05
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [ACADEMIC-STUDY-MAGIC] Magic and 1960s counter-culture
Nicholas Campion doth schreibble :
>
<SNIPS>
>
> I have always had a problem with the notion of 'New
> Age' as a 'post counter-cultural'. i.e., post 1960s
> phenomenon. A lot of commentators on the topic hold
> to this idea, even if they acknowledge Alice
> Bailey's existence from the 1920s onwards. My
> working assumption is that New Age ideas (and
> magical, esoteric, theosophical, occult ones)
> had a significant input into 1960s hippy/
> psychedelic culture. Hence New Age did not arise
> from the counter-culture, but contributed to it.
Hi, Nick -
You're certainly not alone in that - even the Wiki
article for 'New Age' follows your assumption.
Classified listings in obscure magazines, along with
the post office, played a major role in the
burgeoning counter-culture of the '60s.
I recollect one resource that played an enormous
role, along with various mimeographed 'round-robin'
zine-like collaborative texts - that of Alice
Bailey's Lucis Trust Library, which offered its
catalogue through, and loaned books out by way of,
the mail here in the 'States.
When I last visited their library in Manhattan,
they were still located in one of the United Nations
'out-buildings' up toward the '50s <as in streets>.
Bailey's Lucis Trust Library was also featured as
a resource in Stewart Brand's *Whole Earth Catalog*,
founded in 1968.
Here are a few titles that might be useful to you :
Paul Heelas - *The New Age Movement: Religion,
Culture and Society in the Age of Postmodernity*,
1996.
Steven Sutcliffe - *Children of the New Age: A History
of Spiritual Practices*, 2003.
Daren Kemp, James R. Lewis (eds.) - *Handbook of New
Age*, 2007.
The Brill volume above might prove particularly
useful - see Chryssides' 'Defining the New Age'
and Sutcliffe's 'The Origins of "New Age" Religion
Between the Two World Wars', for example.
Looking forward to your publication.
Cors in Manu Domine,
~ Khem Caigan
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"Heat and Moisture are Active to Generation;
Cold and Dryness are Passive, in and to each Thing;
Fire and Air, Active by Elementation;
Water and Earth, Passive to Generation."
*Of the Division of Chaos*
-Dr. Simon Forman
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