ABSTRACT
Alan Black is a sales assistant in a ‘New Age’ shop. Meditation is the only spiritual practice that is worth following; others, like astrology and tarot cards, are of no interest for him. This chapter suggests that the notions of monism, the human potential ethic and spiritual knowledge, serve as significant interrelated elements that specify a fundamental paradigm of an extraordinary array of contemporary spiritual actors. The prediction of the relevance of ‘New Age’ Spiritualities in Western Societies by M. Hill. He summarises F. Westley and C. Campbell’s works and suggests the detailed inventory as a way of typifying the characteristic features of ‘new age’ spiritualities: individualism, tolerance, syncretism and empowerment of individuals. The definition of perennism has to be understood as an ideal-type that is a mental construction which incorporates the essential, properties of a particular phenomenon. Hill points on ‘individualism’, ‘idealisation of human personality’ and ‘empowerment of individuals’ are merged into the ‘human potential ethic’s component of perennism.
