ABSTRACT
This chapter explores both the contrasts and the convergences between New Agers and Pentecostals/charismatics was that advanced by William McLoughlin in his influential essay Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform. It refers two related terms, Pentecostal and charismatic. The Pentecostal and the charismatic movements have mushroomed into the largest Christian movement of the twentieth century. The chapter considers concerns what may be termed each movement's attempt at rediscovery of invisible realms of sacred power and each movement's emphasis on ecstatic, emotional experience of this power. In her address delivered to the centennial celebration of the American Society of Church History, historian of American religions Catherine Albanese sought to identify the broad outlines of an emerging, ethnically American religion. In the concluding portion of that address, she briefly highlighted a series of rather startling convergences between the new age movement and Christian fundamentalism.
