- New Age communities
-
For other uses, see New Age (disambiguation).
New Age communities are places where, intentionally or accidentally, communities have grown up to include significant numbers of people with New Age beliefs. The intentional communities have specific aims but have a variety of structures, purposes and means of subsistence. These include authoritarian, democratic and consensual systems of internal government.[1] New Age communities also exist on the Internet.[2]
Contents
Notable communities
Australia
- Nimbin – a small town in north-east New South Wales that since the 1973 Aquarius Festival has been a center of hippy and alternative lifestyle.
Europe
- Damanhur – a commune, ecovillage, and spiritual community situated in the Piedmont region of northern Italy about 30 miles (50 km) north of the city of Turin. The group holds a mix of New Age and neopagan beliefs.
- Findhorn – a community founded in 1972 to act as a focal point for the work of Eileen and Peter Caddy and Dorothy Maclean near Findhorn, in Moray, Scotland
- Glastonbury – is particularly notable for the myths and legends surrounding a nearby hill, Glastonbury Tor, which rises up from the otherwise flat landscape of the Somerset Levels. These myths concern Joseph of Arimathea and the Holy Grail, and also King Arthur. Glastonbury is also said to be the centre of several ley lines.
- Totnes – known as "Britain's alternative capital. A New Age nirvana of Sufis, surfers and Buddhist builders ..."[3]
United States
- Arcosanti, Arizona – a self-contained experimental town that began construction in 1970. Its architect, Paolo Soleri, designed the town to demonstrate ways urban conditions could be improved while minimizing the destructive impact on the Earth.
- Asheville, North Carolina
- Boulder, Colorado – home of Chögyam Trungpa's Shambhala Center, Naropa University, and center of the Ken Wilber-based integral movement
- Breitenbush Hot Springs, Oregon
- Esalen, California – a center in Big Sur for humanistic alternative education and a nonprofit organization devoted to multidisciplinary studies ordinarily neglected or unfavoured by traditional academia.
- Harbin Hot Springs, California
- Sedona, Arizona – is where the "Harmonic Convergence" was organized by Jose Arguelles in 1987. Purported "spiritual vortices" are said to be concentrated in the region.
- New Age Connection [1]
Charismatic leadership
Such communities may be founded by charismatic leaders who may be credited with quasi-religious status, being considered gurus or messiahs. Such leaders inhibit the survival of these communities.[4]
See also
References
- ^ Oliver Popenoe, Cris Popenoe (1984). Seeds of Tomorrow: New Age Communities that Work. Harper&Row. ISBN 0062506803. http://books.google.com/?id=qIe8JOKLeNwC.
- ^ Kemp, Daren and James R. Lewis, ed (2007). "The Diffuse Communities of the New Age". Handbook of New Age. Brill Academic Publishers. pp. 175–79. ISBN 9004153551. http://books.google.com/?id=Bm-7DH2bZ8QC&lpg=PA167&dq=%22New%20Age%22%20communities&pg=PA175#v=onepage&q. Retrieved 2010-08-28.
- ^ Lucy Siegle (2005-05-08). Shiny hippy people. London: The Guardian. http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/experts/story/0,,1623868,00.html. Retrieved 2010-05-20.
- ^ Christoph Brumann (2000). "The Dominance of One and Its Perils: Charismatic Leadership and Branch Structures in Utopian Communes". Journal of Anthropological Research 56, No. 4 (4): 425–451. JSTOR 3630926.
External links
- Intentional Communities website
- Intentional Communities Wiki
- Alpha Farm
- Avalon Springs
- Monte Verità
- Twin Oaks Community
Categories:- New Age
- Intentional communities
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