In Defense of New Age
A historian argues that it’s time to reclaim and reform alternative spirituality
My mother-in-law, Terri Orr, retired several years ago as an associate dean at Harvard Medical School — she’s a remarkable woman for many reasons, but among them she’s a seeker in certain New Age and mystical ideas not often associated with the ranking echelon of Harvard’s administration. In addition to being a devout Catholic, Terri is interested in the channeled text A Course In Miracles, and she’s dedicated to both the Twelve Steps and to variants of positive-mind metaphysics.
Her second husband, Jerry Packer, a Jewish man, also from Harvard, was a lawyer and quite conservative. When Jerry was going through some life changes, he found his way to a popularization of A Course In Miracles called Love Is Letting Go of Fear by psychologist Gerald G. Jampolsky. Jerry told me one night, very energetically, how much the book had helped him. I was touched to hear this, not only because I’m interested in people’s experiences with New Age texts, but also because Jerry was conservative in every way, yet he enthused over how a modern mystical work changed his life (he specifically used that phrase).
Later that evening, while Jerry was clearing the dinner dishes, my mother-in-law came up to me and said lovingly but with wry humor…
