new age

Movement of the late 1980s characterized by an emphasis on the holistic view of body and mind, alternative (or complementary) medicines, personal growth therapies, and a loose mix of theosophy, ecology, oriental mysticism, and a belief in the dawning of an astrological age of peace and harmony.

Drawing on the hippie counterculture of the 1960s, new-age ideas include monism and pantheism, preferring intuition and direct experience to rationality and science. Critics of new-age thinking argue that it is so eclectic that it is incoherent. Nonetheless, new-age principles have inspired many business organizations to decentralize and produce less rigid management hierarchies. The rise of European Green parties provided the new-age philosophy with a practical and political forum for its ideas.