Written by Wes Annac, The Culture of Awareness

While there are a lot of unique ways to express our spirituality, I notice that there are two primary ways people choose to express theirs. The first is from a New Age perspective, which promotes the idea that we’re physically and spiritually evolving into a higher state of consciousness and we can communicate with entities in higher realms who want to help us.

The second is from a more centered, levelheaded perspective that recognizes the importance of inner work and self-growth, as opposed to waiting around for things to manifest.

The New Age movement is often criticized by the rest of the conscious community, and if a spiritual practice or perspective seems misaligned with the philosophies of self-growth and self-empowerment, it’s usually called New Agey. It’s as if ‘New Age’ has become a term to describe a form of spirituality that everyone should stay away from.

Any spiritual idea that seems whacky, disempowering or too far out there is usually thrown into the New Age category (and the people who practice them are usually called New Agers), but grounded philosophies are more widely accepted.

The perspective a lot of conscious people have on New Age concepts, which you can read about in Jason Demakis’ article “Are You Making These 7 New Age Mistakes?” is that they cause people to become lazy with the belief that the universe or some other exalted force will take care of everything for them.

I appreciate Jason’s article, because it’s written from a relatively fair and balanced perspective that isn’t overly hateful toward the New Age movement.

Some people don’t try to create a life that’s worth living, because they think all they need to do is focus their thoughts a certain way and the universe or their spiritual guides will instantly provide for them without them putting in any work or effort.

I don’t think this is a helpful way to live, and we’ll hold ourselves back until we realize that effort and self-empowerment are essential to spiritual evolution.

Discovering spirituality doesn’t automatically enable us to create the life of our dreams out of thin air, and if we want something, we have to work for it. We have to put in the effort that’s necessary to get where we want to go, and the problem with some philosophies, New Age or not, is that they don’t encourage genuine self-growth or the exploration of our consciousness.

I think everyone will eventually realize that spiritual evolution won’t be handed to them on a silver platter, but it concerns me to see how heavily the conscious community criticizes New Age concepts and the people who advocate them.

I think it’s important to remember that what works for one person doesn’t always work for another, and we don’t make any progress when we’re judgmental or heavily critical of philosophies that seem crazy to us but, surprisingly enough, help other people.

It seems like some conscious people use the term ‘New Age’ as a way to get on their high horse about spiritual concepts that are disempowering, too far out there, or just don’t resonate with them.

Yes, it’s best to be levelheaded and keep in mind that spiritual evolution is a process and not something we instantly achieve with no effort, but what do we really gain by criticizing people who think in a way that doesn’t seem responsible to us?

No matter what we say, the spiritually irresponsible will stay that way until they’re willing to see that the responsibility to evolve rests with them and do away with the limiting philosophy that’s caused their inactivity.

In the meantime, those of us who criticize them or their beliefs do little more than erect a barrier between us and them, presenting ourselves and our beliefs as if they’re better or more enlightened, when in reality, we’re all on different paths and we’ll all reach the Source in our own ways.

It feels good to be a conscious person who talks openly against concepts we feel are illegitimate or New Agey. It pleases the ego, because it makes us look like intelligent spiritual seekers who, despite that we believe things the rest of the world hasn’t opened up to, are still more grounded or credible than those people down the road who use crystals and talk to angels.

What we don’t realize is that those people are on a path that works for them, and despite our differences in belief, we’re one with them. We’re one consciousness that’s meant to support itself, but we enforce the very division we want to transcend when we claim certain beliefs are wrong or illegitimate.

Part of me wonders if the tendency to criticize people who think differently with terms like ‘New Agers’ is bred from a lack of security with one’s own beliefs. We’re all shunned by society for the concepts we empower, and maybe some spiritual seekers want to appear more intelligent or enlightened than those who believe things they’re unwilling to open up to.

It hurts to read spiritual material that condemns a certain class of seekers with terms that are clearly meant to demean them or point to a lesser awareness, and you’d think it’d be uncharacteristic of the common conscious person who’s awakened to the idea that we’re one consciousness.

Since we know we’re one at the core of our collective being, why are we still so comfortable criticizing certain people just because we think their philosophy is disempowering or illegitimate? All we do is further enforce the religious and spiritual division that have caused war and hatred for centuries. Why would we want to keep that old system in motion?

I’m sure there’ll be ten more articles in the next two weeks from ‘grounded’ spiritual seekers who warn us about the pitfalls of heavily criticized New Age philosophies, and it’s unfortunate that people who claim to be open-minded are still critical and close-minded enough to discredit New Age ideas that don’t resonate with them.

I know there’s a difference between criticizing the New Age movement and warning people against philosophies that limit their self-empowerment and present a distorted view of spirituality, but maybe we can warn about limiting philosophies without the self-aggrandizement that comes with mean-spirited terms like ‘New Agers’.

I wonder if people realize they’re talking about fellow spiritual seekers who are on a path that works for them when they talk about those silly new agers who believe all those crazy things. Since when did we become separate from them?

The only thing that makes us different is our beliefs, and we reinforce that division when we claim our perspective is more legitimate and use terms to demean people who think differently. I’d like to say tolerance is alive and well in the conscious community, but just like the world’s religions, we’ve divided ourselves based on our different beliefs.

We might as well follow contemporary religion if we’re going to criticize one another for having different perspectives, because we’re no different from religions who fight each other over their different interpretations.

As much as I hate to say it, none of us are as evolved as we like to think.

Even the spiritual seekers who’ve emerged from the limiting philosophies, taken responsibility for their evolution and charted their own path still hold themselves (and the rest of us) back when they demean others, and it goes to show that we’re all still children playing in a philosophical sandbox.

I want to see a world where everyone can respect each other’s unique spiritual interpretations. A world where Johnny down the road, who talks about channeling extraterrestrials and using thought to manifest instant wealth, is accepted by Sarah up the road who takes a more discerning, grounded, self-empowering spiritual approach.

Right now, however, Sarah calls Johnny a New Ager and basically mocks his beliefs, and it’s sad to see. The saddest part about it is that this article probably won’t do much to fix it. We’ll continue to read articles from conscious people who basically slam the New Age movement and call other people New Agers, and nothing will change for the better until we can learn to accept each other.

I don’t understand why it’s so hard for spiritual seekers who claim to be grounded to accept seekers who are clearly less grounded, and this unwillingness to live in acceptance will keep the old world in motion until we recognize where we’ve went wrong and try to mend it.

I’ve done what I could to try to help the situation by writing about it, but it’s sparsely written about because it isn’t as popular as topics that are critical of the New Age community, which is treated like an annoying sibling by the rest of the conscious community.

I do think genuine self-growth is a better path to take than sitting around and waiting for things to manifest just because we think about them or read about them in a channeled message, but it’d hurt my heart to criticize people who prefer to read the channelings without doing the inner work.

Call me soft, but I think the New Age path, however limiting or silly to some people, really does help other people spiritually evolve and criticizing it would make me feel like a mean person.

The last thing I want to do is tell someone they’re wrong for choosing a path that works for them but not me, and the best way to spread spiritual knowledge isn’t to discredit or criticize concepts we think are too limiting – it’s to give our opinion on them without erecting a barrier between ourselves and the people who believe in them.

But again, a lot of conscious people will erect that barrier because their ego doesn’t want to be associated with those crazy New Agers.

Nobody is more or less enlightened than anyone else, and the most accomplished, grounded spiritual seeker is just as worthy of love as the ungrounded seeker who has their head in the clouds. The sooner we can realize that we’re all one consciousness and our division is an illusion, the sooner we can stop criticizing each other and finally learn to live in harmony.

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I’m a twenty-one year old writer, blogger, and channel for the creative expression of the Universe, and I created The Culture of Awareness daily news site.

The Culture of Awareness features daily spiritual and alternative news, articles I’ve written, and more. Its purpose is to awaken and uplift by providing material about the fall of the planetary elite and a new paradigm of unity and spirituality.

I’ve contributed to a few different spiritual websites including The Master Shift, Waking Times, Golden Age of Gaia, Wake Up World and Expanded Consciousness. I can also be found on Facebook ( and ) and , and I write a paid weekly newsletter that you can subscribe to for $11.11 a month .