New Age communities
New Age communities are places where, intentionally or accidentally, communities have grown up to include significant numbers of people with New Age beliefs. The intentional communities have specific aims but have a variety of structures, purposes and means of subsistence. These include authoritarian, democratic and consensual systems of internal government.[1] New Age communities also exist on the Internet.[2]
Notable communities
Australia
- Nimbin – a small town in north-east New South Wales that since the 1973 Aquarius Festival has been a center of hippy and alternative lifestyle.
Europe
- Damanhur – a commune, ecovillage, and spiritual community situated in the Piedmont region of northern Italy about 30 miles (50 km) north of the city of Turin. The group holds a mix of New Age and neopagan beliefs.
- Findhorn – a community founded in 1972 to act as a focal point for the work of Eileen and Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean near Findhorn, in Moray, Scotland
- Glastonbury – is particularly notable for the myths and legends surrounding a nearby hill, Glastonbury Tor, which rises up from the otherwise flat landscape of the Somerset Levels. These myths concern Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail, and also King Arthur. Glastonbury is also said to be the centre of several ley lines.
- Totnes – known as "Britain's alternative capital. A New Age nirvana of Sufis, surfers and Buddhist builders ..."[3]
United States
- Arcosanti, Arizona – a self-contained experimental town that began construction in 1970. Its architect, Paolo Soleri, designed the town to demonstrate ways urban conditions could be improved while minimizing the destructive impact on the Earth.
- Esalen, California – a center in Big Sur for humanistic alternative education and a nonprofit organization devoted to multidisciplinary studies ordinarily neglected or unfavoured by traditional academia.
- Sedona, Arizona – is where the "Harmonic Convergence" was organized by Jose Arguelles in 1987. Purported "spiritual vortices" are said to be concentrated in the region.
Charismatic leadership
Such communities may be founded by charismatic leaders who may be credited with quasi-religious status, being considered gurus or messiahs. Such leaders inhibit the survival of these communities.[4]
See also
References
External links