TEŠKOĆE SOCIOLOGlJSKO - RELIGIJSKOG PRISTUPA NEW AGEU
DIFFICULTIES OF SOCIO-RELIGIOUS APPROACH TO NEW AGE

Summary/Abstract: The phenomenon of new age represents the challenge for the sociology of religion because it makes insufficient the theories which operated with the thesis about the secularization and those which operated with the theorems about the modernization. They are inefficient (the secularization theory) or insufficient (the modernization theory) because they are incapable to give a relevant judgment of the new age movement. The first is inefficient because it simply rejects new age saying that it is a fashionable trend, and the second is insufficient because it is based on doubtful theorems about the spirit of modernity, ln the atmosphere of Weberian concept of charisma, the new age-idea understands itself as an "inside modification", a "new paradigm". But the contents of the new age-idea can be understood more easily as the continuation of the old in the new form. The important characteristics of the new age-idea: faith in the cosmic consciousness, "I" transformation, holistic attitude, faith in evolution and in "new man" are the expression of indisposition towards the spirit of modernity and they hope they will be able to represent a way out from the crisis and an attempt to integrate the dispersed ideas of post-modernism into an entierty.

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