Scholars of various disciplines use "the Other" or "Othering" as "viewing or treating (a person or group of people) as intrinsically different from and alien to oneself" (dictionary definition) often as a way to distinguish oneself from persons or groups considered inferior, for example in the context of colonialism with the ruling colonisers looking down, and discriminating against, the 'primitive natives'.
I've noticed such a tendency myself when it comes to New-Age bashing, which I'm ashamed to say (ok, not so ashamed) I enjoy no end because I used to run with that crowd for a couple of years on account of my then yoga teacher girlfriend, and boy, did I meet some space cadets and seriously deluded wackos back then… You might have noticed that I don't have very much compunction to resort to Othering but jokes about
aside, it helps to me to define what I'm actually about in the occult arena and what I definitely don't want to be seen dead to do, think or believe because it would too much smack of NewAgeism.
Now the standard scholarly work on what NewAge really means in Wouter J. Hanegraaff's "New Age Religion and Western Culture" (which I'm hesitant to share because it's not an easy read, interminable footnotes on every page, etc. although the guy writes entertainingly for a serious author) but I haven't read it yet and don't want to engage in a scholarly discussion about what NewAge really is or hear about outrageous love&light specimens that make you cringe for days. Instead, I would like to engage in some creative Othering and use that shamefully discriminatory tool to find out if we share some common ground with 'them', maybe weed out some prejudices (and create new ones
), or identify beliefs or pratices even NewAgers would find weird or incomprehensible.
I'll start: It's not entirely true that NewAgers sport rose-tinted spectacles all the time and want to live in a world where all is sugar and spice and everything nice. It was my observation at that time that some of them definitely were prepared to look closer at their less-than-spiritual side and engage in some sort of shadow work (Jung used to be held in high regard, no surprise there). At the same time, they seemed to be deathly afraid of
magic in all its forms, even of the most pious white-lighter variety. Affirmations were ok, various 'healing' (= guided relaxation) too, but no rituals, please, spare the innocent! I wonder now if this was a holdover taboo from the days of all-pervading Christianity where praying to the saints for intercession was ok but anything more than that a demonic iniquity.
So: How are we in this forum different from all those NewAgers (except that we don't want to be like 'them')? Is it a readiness to engage in critical thinking and use common sense where appropriate? A habit of doing more thorough research? A willingness to actually interact with the numinous instead of just passively believing in it?
and all that. 
be happy have fun but ffs it seems the more materialistic a person is then the more they try to make up for it by being “spiritual”. (Spiritual is in quotes due to me not knowing wtf they think spiritual or spirituality means, but I do know Starbucks would make bank if they tried to capitalize on it)
