Meme: a cultural item that is transmitted by repetition in a manner analogous to the biological transmission of genes...especially with the connotation that memes parasitize people into propagating them much as viruses do.

The term meme complex denotes a group of mutually supporting memes that form an organized belief system, such as a religion.

I see the New Age movement as a meme complex.

To me, this concept explains very well how the ideas of the New Age are spread. Think of the rampant spread of the ideology of The Secret, for example. How people felt a compulsion to aggressively (and/or passive aggressively) proselytize and spread the ideas to the people around them. And did so (and continue to do so) to a nauseating extent.

The constant promotion of certain New Age ideas by its proponents (ex. "creating abundance," "creating your own reality," "all part of the divine plan," "love and light," spiritual hierarchy leading to ascended masterdom, etc.), all while often denying they are doing so, is an example of how these memes are spread in the population.

People are often parasitized by these ideas/memes without even knowing it. Their speech is peppered with this stuff...or sometimes just a few words sneak in. But the energy of it is the same. The fact that people promote it often without even recognizing they're doing it (or at the very least denying they are doing it) shows the level to which it has been embedded, to different degrees.

A lot of New Agers I've come across use very sneaky and subtle proselytizing techniques. They start off with seemingly benign chit chat and then subtly start pushing their beliefs, throwing in a few key concepts. Because it's not out in the open, it's easier for the meme to spread. People feel its all very innocuous - both the person doing the proselytizing and the person being proselytized to.

But I believe the effects of these New Age memes on the individual and, therefore, on our societies, are far from innocuous.

The words often say one thing, seemingly innocuous on the surface, but ultimately mean another. Elements and applications of New Age ideology are being used manipulatively, in damaging ways, and are taking hold along with the seemingly more light-hearted aspects.

The end result of people adopting these ideas is a largely complacent, docile, navel-gazing population ignorant of much of anything that hasn't been prescribed on their journey up the (false) enlightenment ladder.

It's bizarre to me that people speak as if they are reading straight out of a New Age textbook, but they claim they are not New Age. They repeat the same beliefs, the same idioms, use the same tactics but claim no connection. If there really is no connection, how can I generally tell within seconds that someone is coming from this ideology, no matter how sneaky the person is? Once you can energetically pick up on the influence of these New Age ideologies, there is no doubt.

So perhaps "New Age" is an old term, one easily denied by those who sense critique? Maybe we need a new term for this meme complex?

Either the proponents of these ideas are just denying the roots or they really don't know what they're promoting. In either case, most haven't examined the sociological effect of what they're promoting, and this is unnerving.

To me, the prevailing New Age meme complex is an overriding mindset that promotes complacency (misusing the terms "acceptance," "tolerance," "surrender," "all part of the divine plan"), lack of personal responsibility and action, and solipsism (nothing exists outside yourself) where every social ill is linked back to the individual's negative thinking or belief system. Every social ill, people are told, can be solved with internal self-examination, meditation, "spiritual" practises prescribed by them, etc.

Everything is considered subjective, even the very idea of right and wrong. Everything can be explained away with this mindset...murder, theft, rape, destruction of people's homes and businesses. People are taught that they do not have the right to judge these things. They are taught to give up their own personal discernment and values in favour of the "divine order."

People are taught that nothing exists outside themselves, and that, therefore, there is no external accountability for actions, even from public officials. Everything is in the hands of the "higher power," which they already are or can become by submitting to the hierarchical process of "enlightenment."

The ideology goes that there is a spiritual hierarchy that each individual is striving to climb on his/her way to achieving "ascended master" consciousness. (IE. Buddha, Jesus, etc.) Immense amounts of time and energy are put into climbing this supposed enlightenment ladder...all focussed on the individual achieving "enlightenment," determined by those who are already considered at the top of the hierarchy.

Endless books, lectures, workshops, fasts, cleanses, purification rituals, diets, programs, all intended to keep the individual focussing strictly on him or herself. Playing people off each other, activating the spiritual ego about who is more or less "enlightened." It's a race to the finish line.

"Guru" human beings who have supposedly reached the highest levels of this enlightenment ladder are set up as models by which those on a lower rung should pattern their lives.

And again, the language of it seems innocuous at first. (As does, for example, world leaders calling for a new world order.)

Tolerance, acceptance, love and light? Who could be against these things?

But here is the subtext, the double-speak. Here is where the combination of personal discernment and intuition (Virgo and Scorpio in astrology) are necessary to weed out the real from the fake. To pick up on the underlying message and energy and identify and eliminate the embedded poison before it is swallowed.

There is a message...and there is the effect and application of that message. Here is where the ideological thrust of the New Age movement gets less innocuous.

When you strip away the fuzzy language, the effect is this:

People are taught that everything is subjective. That acceptance of all things is the way to go (including those things generally considered personally or societally unacceptable) because the individual has no right to declare what is right and wrong, acceptable and unacceptable. They are told they do not understand the divine order of things (only those "higher up" do) but can calm themselves with the understanding that it is "all part of the divine plan." This goes to the extent that mass murder committed by the state is all part of the divine plan. That the people killed agreed to be killed as part of a "higher plan" that cannot be judged by the individual. (That channelled Kryon crap is a big proponent of this supposedly "more spiritual" view of things.)

Nothing exists "outside" the individual, so all events are linked back to the individual. If "darkness" is experienced, it is because the individual is a negative thinker or holds a negative belief system and is attracting this "negativity" (often creating a huge amount of guilt and an eroding belief that there is something wrong with the individual, that they are energetically dirty, etc.). Because of this all-encompassing link to the individual, all ills, people are taught, can be solved with internal focus. There is a lack of holding anyone external accountable for their actions (because, they are taught, there is no "external"). This also relates to the state and relieves the individual of any requirement of political or sociological awareness or action. There is a lack of any personal responsibility for collective circumstances (since the only thing that exists is the individual and his/her consciousness).

All questions are answered with the same meaningless, solipsistic idioms.

Endless philosophical tail-chasing and navel-gazing related to goals of climbing the personal enlightenment ladder are encouraged. (Wank, wank, wank.)

People are encouraged to drop/"purify" their egos and personal will, as well as any personal values that are not aligned with New Age values. Those values, they are told, are from a "lower consciousness."

Anything that doesn't fit the meme complex, people are told, is from a "lower consciousness" or "lower vibration" and is looked upon distastefully. There is an overriding pressure to conform.

Skills such as critical analysis, personal discernment, preferences, judgement and rejection of what is not meaningful or necessary for the individual are all looked at suspiciously and are quite often given a negative spin.

There is an imbalanced, excessive glorification of and push for tolerance, acceptance, surrender to a higher power, going with the flow, love and light, etc.

So much easier to pull the wool over your eyes, my dear!

In reality, critical thinking and personal discernment have never been more necessary to balance the excesses of this ideology.

The individual's intuitive skills/personal perceptions are also often vilified by those in the New Age ("You need to check/align your perceptions") but are very necessary to skillfully determine what is really going on. When a person feels something isn't right, generally something isn't right. But within the New Age meme complex, personal intuition about what is going on is is subverted to external sources of New Age information/explanation.

Anything outside the New Age paradigm is denied and rejected as "lower consciousness" from a "lower dimension."

With a strong, well-developed intuitive faculty, people are able to feel things like dishonesty, lack of integrity, false motivations, abusiveness, attempts at domination and coercion. They know on a gut level what to remove, eliminate, get rid of. These are qualities, again, that the New Age generally writes off as "negative" under the imbalanced Piscean Age umbrella of "Everything is acceptable. Tolerate everything."

Being aware of both the surface appearance and what is going on underneath (hidden influence and motivations) is crucial. But any form of critique or exploration of hidden motivations is written off by the New Age movement as the "negative perceptions" of the individual. Or the (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) perceptions of a less enlightened individual who just isn't "there yet."

When people haven't allowed themselves to be talked out of their personal knowledge, they can smell bullshit a mile away. They can determine real from fake.

But people trusting their own perceptions and making their own discernments is dangerous when you're trying to put one over on them. People who trust their own bullshit detectors over all else can tell if your motive is dirty. They are less easy to manipulate. And this is dangerous to people with coercive, manipulative, damaging motivations. They would prefer the populace give these powers over to them. And with New Age ideology, they usually do.

Which, I believe, is part of why people using these faculties are often attacked or written off as "negative," etc.

It's the perfect embedded religion, isn't it? To go along with that embedded police force. It's a belief system that claims no centralization. People promote the beliefs without even knowing what they are doing or of the effect these beliefs have. It's the advancement of One World Religion, and most people don't seem to recognize it.

"Good afternoon, believers," Obama says.

Gag.

Nothing is out in the open anymore. The influence is hidden. Which is why it's crucial that we develop these very refined bullshit detecting skills and trust our own perceptions, especially when others are trying to talk us out of them.