Ok, "the dawning of the age of Aquarius"

I first came across this concept in Astrology about 10 yrs ago. It was described to me then as a transition rather than a fixed point.

My recent musings...

When the first nuclear bomb dropped it signaled the change. From that moment on we followed Einstein and challenged Newton.

I've been thinking about energetics alot lately and it's occured to me that the transition is between Newtonian physics and Einsteinian physics.

We're in the process of working from one to the other?

What does everyone else think?

I've obviously not come up with these ideas independantly, but it's lots of books and stuff...
please don't make me ref

but what do you think?

hmmmm well taken as the passage of time during which the Cosmos evolves between 2150-2160 year 'ages' of a Great Sidereal Year, then I can see it as a solid and non-fluffy construct. Although as the Cosmos itself is so big I don't know how much of a change would be noticed.

Taken as the start of the New Age Movement, well as the NAM is basically down to people looking for spiritual answers outside of their own culture and then often cherry-picking what they fancy, well yes that can be very fluffy indeed.


There is another description of the New Age, one that states it is the movement away from the One God and a return to the many. This would seem to explain the upsurge in Paganism but methinks it was probably coined after the event and not before.

Kev

So, in looking for spiritual answers outside their own culture they come across ways of looking at the world that would seemingly not make "scientific sense".

It's all about vibrations and stuff...
Hang on... vibrations can be explained by science can they not?
Maybe, what kind of vibrations?
Well, crystals and that...
Well I don't know about that!! says science.
But can science not be used to explain vibrational crystal theories?

Now crystals aren't really my thing and I don't profess to be a science expert.
I'm just asking questions.

I know we've got science people hanging about and I'm sure there are some crystal people in here too.

I suppose my question now is
Can science de-fluff the new age?

I didn't say that.

What I said was that some tend to cherry-pick what they like and that can be fluffy. For example someone who mixes Hopi ear candles with Pyramids and a bullroarer then thinks theyve found an answer to all life's mysteries.

Its the same practice that blights eclectic paganism. For every EP who does the research and makes an informed judgement you get 2 who read a book and then think the whole world is a spiritual smörgåsbord.



Well vibrations exist and crystals can vibrate. That much is science. There are also aspects of magic that might relate here - sympathetic magic and sympathetic resonance perhaps. But getting science to make the link...

Can science de-fluff the New Age?

No. Not until
A) Science can explain magic, gods, the soul etc...

People realise that by just dipping in and out of exotic cultures they can not achieve true spiritual growth.

Kev

New age coming. I think Crowley proclaimed the dawning of the age of aquarius?

Crowley did coin the phrase, though crystals are also used in science yippee

Oh, I wasn't saying you did. I meant - right lets imagine someone goes looking for...
It's the cherrypicking that makes the fluffy. If that's what you mean then I would agree.


But isn't all science magic and all magic science? Even if we can't always make the links?

recently a group of scientists showed a trick at a big venture they were then asked if they were the W word! they hastened to add that they certainly were not lol i think your right tilia

Sounds interesting! Can you tell us any more about it?

thats all i know

It depends where you stand.

For us magic users its yes.

For scientists its no

For Mrs Everyone on the street its probably more to do with how pretty the crystals are and what her stars are in the daily rag

K

isnt rhodium a crystal used in science?

As I understand it, science aims to work in a methodical way to prove hypotheses by experiments that can be repeated at will by anyone (though we usually take the scientists' word for it, and then it becomes more like a religion!).

New Age ways of working have something in common with psychology, which is supposed to be a kind of science, but none of it is provable. How could you set up an experiment to prove by double-blind whatsit that placing certain crystals on the body will have a specific effect? Crystal healers exist here and there in their own little world, working on intuition as far as I can see. If there is knowledge, it's not traceable to source - it hasn't been discovered by patient objective experiment. People like Katrina Raphaell are not scientists, they are more like mystics.

Energetic medicine such as flower remedies and homoeopathy have been developed to be used in an intuitive way too, I'd say. You can't point to a specific remedy for a particular condition - it's all highly complicated, the diagnosis resulting from interaction between practitioner and patient.

But then 'New Age' covers a lot of things, such as diagnosis by muscle testing, which is one thing that ought to be independently testable. You would think.

Are the scientists at all interested, by the way?

Its all magick as far as I am concerned
jape

This is maybe part of what I'm thinking. If "The dawning of the Age of Aquarius" is a long term transition then are we in the middle of process?
We've gone from ignorance of, for example, vibrational techniques, to awareness. We've then done a bit of dabbling and progressed through to more serious study, and sometimes development, of certain techniques. So is the next step scientific breakthrough. Like someone makes an intuitive leap and identifies a scientific principle which will explain previously inexplicable observed actions.
When that happens will we have arrived fully in the "Age of Aquarius"?


I think you can. They did it with acupuncture and used observation of brain activity to measure the effects.


I think some are. I would imagine the main problem is getting someone to fund research in this area.

I know and, like I said to you before, I am beginning to feel that but...

I don't know why I'm so obsessed with bringing science into the equation. But it's there, nibbling away at my brain...

There is a lot of truth in what you are saying here Julai. New age and alternative therapies are all well and good - my own feeling is that many - if not all - work on the so called 'placebo' effect - and there is nothing wrong with that if it is a stress relief people seek. Although I would say there are better ways of dealing with that - change of life style and so on.

Hi Tilia. An interesting read and an attempt to bring science and alternative therapies together is a book called The Field by Lynne Mctaggart.
The Field : The Quest for the Secret Force of the Universe {2003) ISBN 0-06-093117-5. Its an easy read and will give you food for thought on these approaching dark nights.

Yes, that's an interesting book!

Brilliant, thanks.

Well I would say science is pretty limited in it's understanding. It describes what it knows. And then it kind of stops. And has a tendency to think that's all. Magic seems to tend to be more flexible in what it will 'allow'. To me they're both attempts at describing and using the way things are. Is either definitive? i would say not.

(edited for typos)

I would say that science could not progress without the "what if" or the "why" factor. Without the wonder and the awe. That is why it moves on. It is always questioning. I think thats why science never stops. That is why, to me, science is magic. And that's why magic never stops...
...and why magic is science...

OH TIlia YES YES YES!!! totally inspired and oh so right , such beauty in both such awesome power in both long live magic and long live science covers ears due to early fireworks

one of my fave scientists....

http://www.sheldrake.org/homepage.html

That looks interesting, thanks.

Had a good look through that Robert Sheldrake link now and wow, there's a reading list that'll keep me busy for a while!

Thanks Illuminatidred