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Neoliberalism and New Age
Chapter · January 2016
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_336-1
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Neoliberalism and New Age
Maria Eugenia Funes
Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Laborales,
Buenos Aires, Argentina
Keywords
New Age; Neoliberalism; Individual; Con-
sumption; Autonomy; Entrepreneurship
Definition
The link between New Age spirituality and neo-
liberal discourses and practices can be best
described by the Weberian concept of elective
affinities. Firstly, both phenomena share a focus
on the individual, who is thought to be responsible
for his/her own destiny in all realms of everyday
life. In addition they share the defense of auton-
omy and the promotion of entrepreneurship as
means of achieving personal success both in eco-
nomic and religious life.
The study of the link between neoliberalism
and a religious movement requires, first, the def-
inition of the former as a process of production of
subjectivities involving the growing influence of
certain values rather than an order imposed to
passive social agents. Neoliberal reforms around
the world were synchronic to transformations in
the hegemonic values that constitute social prac-
tices. Many authors have highlighted the
marketization of social relations as well as their
organization around the idea of self-enterprise as
two of the main characteristics of this process.
Individuals are encouraged to seek their own
development and manage themselves to succeed
in all dimensions of everyday life, while all forms
of state intervention are denounced as ineffective
and dangerous for individual freedom. Neoliber-
alism is, thus, characterized by a growing stress
upon individual responsibility.
The link between the cosmovision of New Age
spirituality and neoliberalism would be best
described from a relational perspective rather
than in terms of direct influence, cause, nor deter-
mination. In this point, following a Weberian per-
spective, certain elective affinities between both
phenomena can be established. The development
of New Age spirituality in Latin America during
the 1980s was contemporary with neoliberal
reforms.
One of the main characteristics of New Age is
its inclusion of many types of spiritual disciplines,
practices, and discourses. This apparently hetero-
geneous composition shows, however, certain
common principles among which we can stress
the belief that divinity is located within the indi-
vidual. This implies a “sacralization of the self”
(see “▶Sacralization of the Self”) that stands out
as an obvious affinity with neoliberalism’s stress
upon individual responsibility toward its own life.
However, New Age and neoliberalism share other
less obvious practices and values: social relations
mediated by consumption, defense of autonomy,
#Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2016
H.P.P. Gooren (ed.), Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions,
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_336-1
and the promotion of entrepreneurship, among
others.
As regards consumption, from the very begin-
ning of the movement, New Age practices and
disciplines were most generally bought as ser-
vices. The sale and purchase of religious prac-
tices, like yoga or meditation, gave way to the
configuration of a spiritual market. This property
was interpreted by social sciences in two different
directions. A “positive”interpretation celebrated
the development of a “spiritual marketplace”as
the expression of a growing religious pluralism
that weakens traditional religious institutions.
This implies the assumption that social agents
count with a vast religious offer that favors free-
dom of choice in a larger context of generalization
of the market economy. In addition, this position
argues that in the realms of spirituality, identity is
generally constructed by individuals (Van Hove
1999). On the other hand, New Age has been
generally described as (sometimes accused of
being) a “consuming tendency.”The promotion
of “self-seeking”was associated with a passive
and superficial attitude that encouraged consum-
erism (Heelas 2008). The tendency of purchasing
religious goods and services isn’t, however,
exclusive of New Age spirituality. All religious
traditions in Latin America count with religiously
marked goods that enable individuals to get in
touch with divinity by means of consumption
(Algranti 2014). Therefore, we can suggest an
elective affinity between neoliberalism’s stress
on consumption and the positive value of purchas-
ing religious goods and services as a way of
reaching divinity. This affinity isn’t privative of
New Age, though.
Secondly, New Age in Argentina has been
described as an incorporation of the demands of
autonomy and anti-authoritarianism of the 1960s
and 1970s social movements to the realm of reli-
gion. New Age spirituality doesn’t establishes a
dogmatic path to achieving salvation defined in
native terms as the search for individual holistic
growth, or “enlightment,”by means of getting in
touch with intimacy. On the contrary, spiritual
seekers are encouraged to try different practices,
in accordance with their own need and prefer-
ences, in order to achieve the knowledge of
“their essence”(Carozzi 2000). As regards spiri-
tual specialists, they generally don’t present them-
selves as figures of authority. Instead, they define
themselves only as “helpful”to a process that
relies on the individual. Furthermore, spiritual
seekers tend to deny being involved in a collective
process of spiritual diffusion. Thus, within the
realms of New Age, there is no construction of
social identities. Social actors “leave New Age”
(see “▶Leave New Age”), defining their religious
practices mostly in individual terms. Other
authors claimed that the discourse of self-
authority was a mask that covered the fact that
New Age networks present a “multitude of
authorities.”This perspective affirms that
neoliberalization appears as a combination of
technologies of the self that constitute individuals
that think they are making choices when they are
actually under the influence multiple authorities
(Wood 2007).
Finally, New Age shares with neoliberalism
the promotion of entrepreneurship. Empirical
studies in Latin America have shown the way in
which positive and “magic”thinking, based on the
belief in the “divine power”of the mind and on a
holistic conception of the relationship between the
person and the world, is spread in workplaces to
promote an entrepreneur logic within employees.
This is the case of direct sales networks in Mexico
described by Gutierrez Zuñiga (2005) and Cahn
(2011). Direct selling grew in that country in a
context of increasing foreign investment eased by
free trade agreements. Anthropological research
suggests that people are attracted to this type of
freelance work not only by the possibility of mak-
ing profit but also by of the promise of an inner
feeling of achievement given by the belief in
individual power to change life conditions.
“Alongside the cosmopolitan, entrepreneurial
qualities encouraged by neoliberalism, direct
sellers seek to return to a primordial past when
humans understood how to control their own des-
tinies without relying on anyone else”(Cahn
2011: 15).
2 Neoliberalism and New Age
Cross-References
▶Cultural Industry
▶Leave New Age
▶New Age Consumption
▶New Age in Network Marketing Organizations
▶Sacralization of the Self
References
Algranti J (2014) La Industria del Creer. Sociología de las
Mercancías Religiosas. Biblos, Buenos Aires
Cahn P (2011) Direct sales and direct faith in Latin Amer-
ica. Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Carozzi MJ (2000) Nueva Era y terapias alternativas.
Construyendo significados en el discurso y la
interacción. Ediciones de la UCA, Buenos Aires
Gutiérrez Zúñiga C (2005) Congregaciones del éxito:
interpretación socio-religiosa de las redes de mercadeo
en Guadalajara. El Colegio de Jalisco-Universidad de
Guadalajara, Guadalajara
Heelas P (2008) Spiritualities of life. New age romanticism
and consumptive capitalism. Blackwell Publishing,
Oxford
Van Hove H (1999) L’emergence d’un marché spirituel.
Soc Compass 46(2):161–172
Wood M (2007) Possession, power and the new age: ambi-
guities of authority in neoliberal societies. Ashgate,
Aldershot
Neoliberalism and New Age 3
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