Opinion | The Age of Aquarius, All Over Again! - The New York Times - 0 views
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astrology. According to a 2018 Pew poll, 29 percent of Americans say they believe in astrology. That’s more than are members of mainline Protestant churches.
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witchcraft. In 1990, only 8,000 Americans self-identified as Wiccans. Ten years later there were 134,000, and today, along with other neo-pagans, there are over a million
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The fourth is wokeness, what some have called the Great Awokening. Burton’s essay is really about how astrology and witchcraft have become important spiritual vocabularies within parts of the social justice movement.
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The first need is simply to find a way to be spiritual. People are always saying we live in a more secular age, but secularism never really comes
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Humans are transcendent creatures who have spiritual experiences and instinctively appeal to supernatural powers.
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Second, there is a widespread need to slow down, to escape the pace of life technology wants and to live at a human pace.
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Political alienation manifests itself in the alt-right and the energized radical left. It makes sense that it would manifest itself in the spiritual realm, too.
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Astrology tells you who you are and what traits you have. In a highly diverse society, it also tells you what sort of people you’re likely to be compatible and incompatible with. When I hear people talk about astrology, this is how they are using it.
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Fifth is the desire to live within a coherent creed and community, but without having that creed impinge on your individual autonomy
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The emerging spirituality is a hodgepodge spirituality. Each person borrows practices from, say, Native American, Buddhist, Christian, Jewish and SoulCycle tradition
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The people I know who talk about astrology sort of believe it, but they sort of don’t. Their attitude is ironical, attached and detached all at once.
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I doubt it’s possible to have tight community and also total autonomy, that it’s possible to detach spiritual practices from the larger narratives and cultures and still have something life-shaping