Possession, Power and the New Age

This is a thorough and methodologically rigorous sociological enquiry into new age phenomena. Matthew Wood first challenges the theoretical weaknesses that underlie most analyses of new age groups and ideas, proposing that any analysis must be firmly grounded in an explicit and coherent sociological context which truly explores the social and cultural contexts. He then describes his field work over several years in the Nottingham region where he became a member of a local new age meditation group and attended other events, such as channelling workshops, mind-body-spirit fairs, and spiritualist and pagan groups.Unless you are familiar with the language of contemporary social theory, this book might be a challenging read. It does, however, make a general and very important observation, which is also vindicated by my own observations of this field.Wood notices that although most new age groups and leaders use the language of deep democracy, facilitated leadership and egalitarian group dynamics, in actual fact their behaviour is not congruent. These leaders are frequently authoritarian, non-reflective and unable gracefully to receive contrary feedback. This makes salutary reading for anyone inclined to idealise or ignore the egoistic behaviour typical of spiritual leaders throughout the ages. Plus ça change …