Category talk:New Age

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Unless I'm missing something, cannot edit the category. It only shows the intro statement. BF 17:17, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)

That is normal. The entries are automatically generated when the category has been added to the respective articles e.g. the entry channeling will show up as soon as in the article the category [[Category:New Age|channeling]] has been added. Andries 19:16, 16 Jun 2004 (UTC)
you can ommit |channeling from the above. [[Category:New Age]] is sufficient. -- JeLuF 19:18, Jun 16, 2004 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] How to edit and add articles

I'd like to help out here but there's no docs on how to do anything! If you noticed Mysticism is out of place it's because I did it. If you don't want me to help then I won't. BF 15:33, 17 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I am certain I speak for everyone, BF, when I say we most definitely want you to help! As to including the mysticism article, let me try to do a quick "how-to." I presume that what you want to do is include the article Mysticism within the New Age category. What Andries is saying is that in order to add the Mysticism article to Category:New Age, we have to go to and edit the Mysticism article page, rather than going to and editing the Category:New Age page.
So I went to the Mysticism article page and placed at the bottom of it the text string, "[[Category:New Age]]", and when I come back to the page for Category:New Age, I find that, magically (no pun intended) and automatically, the Mysticism listing is now included in the category's alphabetic listings. If you go to the bottom of the Mysticism page, you will see what I have done.
I have also deleted the entry you made, "[[Category:New Age|Mysticism]]" from this category's page, because putting that here doesn't do anything.
Hope that helps. Feel free to discuss further if I have been unclear in my explanation. Regards, --Gary D 08:47, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thank you Gary for helping. Quid pro quo ;) BF 13:24, 19 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Additional intro material for category

any more comments? is the intro on Category:New Age illuminating? BF

BF, I think this is interesting stuff you have added to the category intro, but I'm wondering if it wouldn't be better in the New Age article itself, rather than here in the introduction, because it seems more like substantive discussion of New Age and how New Age manifestations might be viewed by, say, skeptics. I would think the category intro, on the other hand, would consist mainly of statements concerning category scope, that is, what the browsing reader will and will not find in the category listings below. I would propose moving this addtional stuff into the New Age article itself, and then here on the category page citing the New Age article prominently as the flagship article for the category. --Gary D 20:26, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] What's in, what's out

Why is yoga and TM included into New Age? I think it should be included into Hinduism.Andries 21:13, 20 Jun 2004 (UTC)

They are part of the New Age lifestyle and even though yoga is ancient, its modern resurgence is associated with the New Age. Most of the related topics in the New Age article can be categorized here if they have some sort of subjective new age spin. If they have no relation at all(read the article again) they don't belong in this category. BF 01:12, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Andries, BF's explanation above was indeed what I had in mind when I added TM to the New Age category, but ironically, I had a very similar reason for adding Anthony Robbins and Neuro-Linguistic Programming to the New Age category, which entries BF herself (gender?) immediately removed. I figured we would have some problems with drawing boundaries, and have been trying to move slowly rather than just throwing everything in there all at once, so that we could have some time to work these issues out. On the other hand, we do need to move forward, even if it engenders some conflict. Perhaps there's a principled reason for Anthony Robbins being out and yoga being in--BF, what do you think? Andries, if you feel strongly enough about removing TM, I won't be offended if you do. (I also put TM's founder in here.) We may have to experiment for a while to see if we can cook up at least a rough consensus on all of these. --Gary D 01:27, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I read each article listed in this category. Even a loose reference to said articles by New Age is reason enough. By the way, I am not the ultimate authority here on what goes where and why.

I understand. However, you do represent one end of the spectrum (or the "range of skepticism," we might say) to be consulted here, so your views matter. I am trying to find a set of inclusion criteria that reconciles your view with those of Andries, who represents the other end of that spectrum.

I merely keep an eye on my pet article to ensure it isn't ruined by scientific zealots, as it was many times when Larry Sanger used to add gems of wisdom in the earlier Talks.

I suspect that tension is part of what the Wikipedia project is all about, since encyclopedias have traditionally been edited by a small group; the thinking here being that a larger group's consensus will lead to a better product. We'll see.

Robbins still seems to be the same dude promoting his how to get rich schemes on his infomercials. I just don't feel that article even remotely relates to a new age lifestyle. The other one(NLP) is a scientific article, even though it has a pseudoscience flavor. A lot of new age products are like the old snake oil items peddled on wagons in the 1800's.

BF, maybe you could give some more details on what would be in versus out as relates to "a new age lifestyle," because on the current basis I cannot really answer Andries' concern that Yoga and TM should be left out of this category as well. You mention pseudoscience and say below, "Tony Robbins is no Marianne Williamson," but Andries would probably say Marianne Williamson is also selling snake oil, and he might conclude that Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, the founder of TM, is no Marianne Williamson, either. Are we talking about a religious versus non-religious orientation as a criterion here? There are an awful lot of entries in the New Age article where religion is only tangentially involved, so it's hard to believe religious orientation could serve usefully to keep, say, the Human Potential Movement out of this category. I realize that's precisely the problem, that this is such an amorphous category, and largely driven by the time period when all these things happened. I am looking for the beginnings of some reasonably principled objective standard. Considering the wide gulf between your orientation and Andries' orientation, if the two of you were to come to some agreement on this, I suspect it would be a sturdy foundation. --Gary D 20:00, 21 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Furthermore, New Age is such a large container with so much in it I think minor edits on half the Wiki articles to update them with the NA spin could find a place here. But we don't want this at all. Tony Robbins is no Marianne Williamson. If you noticed, few New Age lecturers or authors have any articles on here. The reason is, there is a subtle opposition to non scientific writings here, especially with New Age because of how it revises so many terms cherished by the rocket men. Gender? Doesn't matter. The soul, like God, is genderless.

Why worry about Andries?

I worry about Andries because he is a skeptic with an interest in this area.

I thought he was doing another category and you asked me to help out on this one, which I did.

And I appreciate it. :-) Andries is not fond of this category, but I believe he has a great interest in it, as do you, if from another direction.

Many of the articles are multi-categorized. I wish I had a clue why this redundancy of categorizing articles exists. When I saw an article about "lists of people with 2 eyes in Idaho" (sarcastically speaking) on wiki a year ago, I fumed about the absence of authorship here...people drawing up lists of things.

That is the benefit of hearing out both Andries and you--if all points of view have a say up front, perhaps we can avoid lots of redundancy and edit wars. --Gary D 03:13, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Reminds me of the clever satire Herman Hesse wrote about in Magister Ludi-- The Glass Bead Game, with all this silliness and people jumping on it because they had nothing else better(or orginal) to do and say. If every time an article that is listed in this categorica schema causes a problem, I have better things to do. I'm not upset, I am perhaps out of body ;) Been reading and listening to Marianne's book and audio tape Everyday Grace. I just read 2 great articles on New Age that gets into all the questions asked in this discussion. [[1]] [[2]] BF 02:41, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Put into Category:Cultural movements?

Hey BF, what do you think of putting this category as a subcategory into Category:Cultural movements? That category already contains listings for Dadaism and Postmodernism. That sort of broad cultural category seems less restrictive than Category:Religion, though that may be a fit, also. --Gary D 20:49, 22 Jun 2004 (UTC)

I'm gonna be bold and put it there, as that is at least better than Category:Orphaned categories where I'd put this otherwise. --ssd 04:49, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Okay. We'll see if BF concurs. --Gary D 04:54, 23 Jun 2004 (UTC)
Nice list of New Age articles, people :) BF 01:48, 26 Jan 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Brother Twelve

Not sure what category or subcategory he should be in; currently he's got a religious figures stub; and the article is only a stub, as the story of DeCourcy Island is more than a bit sordid and will eventually be a pretty interesting page. He was a radical theosophist, not as deliberately vile as Aleister Crowley but decidedly charismatic and, ultimately, somewhat venal. But "New Age" in a certain early-20th Century outposts-of-the-British-Empire-eccentric kind of way. Any ideas on what category he should be placed in?Skookum1 08:04, 26 July 2006 (UTC)