ABSTRACT
New Age is not so much a religion as a buzzword that achieved popularity chiefly in Europe and the US during the 1980s. The wide and often vague use of the term, and the amorphous nature of the phenomena it refers to, make it impossible to gain any accurate impression of the numbers involved. For reasons which will be explored below, it is most influential in modern (industrial and post-industrial) societies, particularly North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand-though pockets of influence may also be found in cosmopolitan cities worldwide, from Rio de Janeiro to Bombay.
