New Age Politics

New Age Politics – Introduction
According to New Age politics, humanity is evolving toward a collective consciousness that will transcend all material and individual boundaries, including national and political boundaries. World government is a natural evolutionary step in this dissolution of boundaries. According to Mark Satin, “[T]he New Age solution does not call for top-down bureaucratic government, but for much more local autonomy than we have at the present, and much more planetary cooperation.”¹ Donald Keys adds, humanity is “on the verge of something entirely new, a further evolutionary step unlike any other: the emergence of the first global civilization.”²

The New Age desire for global government is based less on political theory than on the concept that “all is one” and that evolution and other scientific principles are leading humanity into global unity. World government has the potential to remove barriers and limits and is thus important for Cosmic Humanists. David Spangler explains, “Unlike many historical expressions of the one-world idea, which focus in particular upon the establishment of a world government, the vision of the New Age qua planetary civilization arises less out of politics than out of what is called the holistic vision. This is the awareness that all life is interrelated and interdependent, that the formative elements of creation are not bits of matter but relationships, and that evolution is the emergence of ever more complex patterns and syntheses of relationships.”³

Since Cosmic Humanists think in terms of understanding the world as a whole instead of the parts, the next pattern to emerge is global civilization, a unity that will demand a one-world government.

New Age Politics – Evolution’s Guarantee
The New Age view of politics maintains that evolution guarantees the disintegration of political boundaries and the advent of a global civilization (just as it guarantees the merging of humanity into the mind of God). Evolution is seen as a process not merely of physical development but total spiritual development as well. As we evolve into higher species, so we evolve into higher consciousness. Integrated into this move toward higher consciousness is the dissolution of political and national boundaries.

Randall Baer describes how scientific evolution supports the Cosmic Humanist belief that global civilization is inevitable: “I read that startling advances in such diverse scientific fields as genetic engineering, telecommunications, supercomputers, nuclear fusion technology, artificial intelligence, solid state physics, quantum physics, advanced holography, laser optics, astrophysics, and others were to be combined with New Age spiritual philosophy in creating a utopian New World Order.⁴

Mark Satin says, “New Age politics is uncompromisingly evolutionary...though it does believe that evolution can be speeded up...”⁵ The Cosmic Humanist, by achieving higher consciousness, may speed mankind’s evolutionary ascent toward the New World Order.

New Age Politics – New World Order
New Age politics rarely specifies the political nature of the coming global civilization, but New Agers believe that each individual is evolving the capacity for self-government. Marilyn Ferguson explains, “The new political awareness has little to do with parties or ideologies. Its constituents don’t come in blocs. Power that is never surrendered by the individual cannot be brokered. Not by revolution or protest but by autonomy, the old slogan becomes a surprising fact: Power to the people. One by one by one.”⁶ Thus in Cosmic Humanist terms, world government is self-government. Centralized national governments will not be necessary. Each individual will be autonomous, deciding what is right for him or her without reference to institutional limits.

The dangerous potential for such a system of individual autonomy, however, is that it will disintegrate into anarchy. Cosmic Humanists, however, emphasize the concept of community as having the capacity to overcome the dangers of anarchy. Satin says, “In New Age society we would learn to make our own decisions and not to hang on others. But that wouldn’t isolate us from others...it would make us more attractive to others and more confident about being in community with them.”⁷ Cosmic Humanists propose communities largely lacking in any political or legal form.

New Age Politics – Conclusion
New Age politics sees the world evolving toward a New World Order in which individuals are free to follow their whims uninhibited by law or government. The New World Order will be reached when everyone (or a majority) achieves a state of higher consciousness. Individual autonomy will make it easier for everyone to reach higher consciousness.

One aspect of personal freedom that the Cosmic Humanist worldview discourages is in the area of faith and traditional religion. Former United Nations Assistant Secretary General Robert Miller says, “Religions must actively cooperate to bring to unprecedented heights a better understanding of the mysteries of life and of our place in the universe. ‘My religion, right or wrong,’ ...must be abandoned forever in the Planetary Age.”⁸

This attitude toward religion stems from the understanding that some religions, such as Christianity and Islam, are incompatible with the Humanist belief that we are evolving toward our own godhood. Christianity will always threaten the New Age emphasis on higher consciousness and hence must be stifled. In the New World Order you may follow your inclinations only as long as they are not found in obedience to Jesus Christ.