A Crash Course on the New Age Movement: Describing and Evaluating a Growing Social Force

Elliot Miller does a good job of giving an overview of the New Age movement. While the book needs up-dating, I certainly found it a helpful and sane introduction to the movement from an American point of view. (I tend to approach New Age thinking more from the point of view of Asian religions, so many of the names he brought up were new to me.) He is fairly objective, and does well to give all sides of the matter, but does not leave any doubt where his loyalties lie. (Jesus -- the Gospel version.) He finds things to praise in the New Age movement, as well as things to criticize in some Christian critiques of it. (A discussion of Constance Cumbey's simplistic attacks on the movement fills a chapter, but there too he is balanced enough to point out the good as well as the bad that her attacks accomplished.) Miller describes the movement, its influence on politics and science, and channeling and other forms of the occult within that movement, without settling for "one size fits all" answers. (i.e., "The devil is taking over over the world," as if he didn't have it already.) Miller shows a breadth of thinking wide enough to engage New Agers on a variety of topics, though I don't see all of his arguments as equally valid. The appendix in which he tells his own story may be the most interesting part of the book. Author, Jesus and the Religions of Man (July 2000)