Truth under control

What is the real truth? Through history we have seen truth purveyed by people in authority and power over others. Religious leaders, politicians, scientists and governments have decreed and disseminated all kinds of information for the populous to accept as truth. Truth appears to gain acceptance according to a the hierarchy of messenger who brings it. In the dark ages, it was accepted that the Earth was a flat object and that sailors would fall off the edge of it if they strayed too far out to sea. Based on simple observations and fear of ridicule, this was accepted by the majority. We may laugh at this now, but how many of our accepted ‘truths’ will future generations laugh at in the light of new observations and technologies?

Conscience of society?

We may think that the hyperbole and fantasies of the new age movement are just another form of distraction from the real truth. This movement is often seen as a maelstrom of contradictions, participating in typical religious hype and dogma that leads to disinformation. A fairer view is that the new age movement represents something of the ‘conscience’ of society that usually resides hidden from everyday life and beneath the status quo of accepted ideas. Like the conscience effect, it often pricks and smarts when we ignore it and subdue its attention.

Linguist and literary critic Roger Fowler discusses the concept of status quo as being the common sense of a period of time and that common sense becomes habitualized when ideas of a given time are firmly established in the people’s consciousness. Fowler warns that this habitualization can lead to a collective social thought that increasingly becomes uncritical.

There is certainly an insidious effect of gradualisation over time that desensitises us from the layering effect of persistence. If something keeps happening, it gets normalised, regardless of its deleterious effect or intrinsic value. To some extent, we are all like the frog in water that is being heated up, gradually, so that we don’t notice the change …

If Fowler is correct in saying ‘that this habitualization can lead to a collective social thought that increasingly becomes uncritical’ then the effects of the New age movement, although apparently rather cranky may serve some useful purpose in challenging accepted paradigms as outdated, incorrect or irrelevant. That being the case, they may well be the thermometer that alerts us to potential problems ahead that stem from concepts that need reviewing. In any social eco-system we can expect fringe activity happening on all extremes that are a healthy part of of the whole and may well serve as an early warning system.

Truth at any cost

The approach of the new age movement is sometimes speculative and irrational. By it’s radical nature it fights against the dinosaur effect. It prefers instead to utilise intuition and a whole range of unorthodox modalities to support its observation and assertions. That is often the way of ‘conscience’. In this regard, the search for alternative possibilities seems to be a crucial aspect, rather than ratifying existing facts. The job of the critical observer is to recognise and learn to integrate this behaviour. Sometimes facing our ‘conscience’ openly and head-on is uncomfortable as it often shows us things through gradualisation we have learnt to forget. Sometimes it shows us the thermometer of change that may save our life or the destruction of civilisation.

Listen to content not behaviour

To understand the new age movement correctly, we need to ignore the behaviour and listen to the content. We will frequently see outrageous claims from this sector that something terrible is about to happen that will threaten our life and lifestyle. If we focus on how this sort of material is delivered, we often see immature and emotionally driven exhibitions of hyperbole. This behaviour is unfortunately counter productive as it infects the content and thus reduces the credibility of the material. However, this is not to say the meaning of the message is necessarily wrong and should be discounted altogether. The analogy is similar to ‘panning for gold’ The new age movement is like a muddy river, but if you take the time to filter the silt and detritus, you may well find a nugget of truth that would otherwise be hidden.

A bird’s eye view

A critical observer tries to take a broad and balanced view of the whole information environment. Part of that is factual evidence and maybe scientific in nature. Part should also be intuitive and derived from outside the status quo. Einstein states that if we keep trying to solve the same problem with the same thinking, we will continue to get the same results. The conclusion is that we must broaden our scope of enquiry in every way, cross boundaries and challenge accepted truths, even if they still serve us in a useful way. We should also see this as a process of exploration, where wrong turns and cul-de-sacs are an accepted part of the journey.

When I first participated in the new age movement, it was both exciting and outrageous and something like watching a disaster movie that leads you to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride. It seemed to tap into many of the submerged rumours of modern society, such as UFOs, Alien intervention, Exotic energy and secret government agencies. As an engineer and maverick scientist, one thing I have learnt and I hold as pretty reliable is that ‘truth is relative and not absolute’. It is merely a construct based on beliefs and the current accepted evolutionary stage of society. That even within that snapshot of time, there will be variations on what is true based on a divergence from the status quo.

The New age movement and all its factions seeks those variations and challenges the very bedrock of existence. Like Christopher Columbus they must suffer the inevitable abuse of the established community who stand rigid in their flat world mentality. Yet somehow I reckon what seems like foolhardiness to the cynical shore lovers, will be rewarded as they bring home a completely new understanding of how the really world is … at least for now.