New Age Decks

[Therese]

Recently I read a comment about new-agey decks. For some reasons I can't imagine what this shall be. Could you help me out and mention some decks you would consider to be new-agey?

 

There is a slightly negative undertone I read out in connection with the word "new-agey". I know that this must sound very naive to ask such a question, but though I read definitions of "new age" I can't get the term right. 

[DanielJUK]

New Age was a popular movement in the 70's and 80's and it's hard to define to be honest. This is my view of it. It was a movement which wasn't conventionally religious or science based. They were the hippies and alternative people who wanted a better world with peace and love. It was abstract and unconventional. It covered clothing, art and music. Progressive Rock and psychedelic music are examples as well as music for like meditation and ambient type tracks. New age was environmental, spiritual and metaphysical, it covered so many areas. You would probably at the time throw tarot, astrology, yoga and meditation into the category. Some book stores still have us in that area of the shop as a genre. You get a lot of people saying peace and love and light from those times! There was quite a global part of these beliefs, a lot of Indian beliefs and culture and other culture were thrown into Western culture during it. A lot of what is called World Music now came out of it. Ethnic designs in clothing and styling, etc.

 

The problem with it was that it was so broad (in my opinion). It was really used to class anything "alternative" and not the conventional. I think these days that things have moved out of that group and not just lumping everything together. Yoga and Paganism and protesting Environmental Causes are different things. We have moved on but in so many areas of our lives are the original ideas of New Age people. They became mainstream in many ways!

 

Some people always felt the New Age movement didn't really have objectives or depth. Like loving yourself and meditating to find yourself was the philosophy but it didn't have a clear framework. I think that is why it's hard to define exactly now. Telling everyone you love them and peace is a bit lightweight, you know? It's nice and sweet and comes from a good place but these days I think we have gone deeper into our personal transformations and spirituality.

 

I would find it really hard to define New Age decks to be honest. Maybe hippish decks, earth loving, peace loving, probably non traditional, not RWS, not TdM or the Italian historic decks.

[Raggydoll]

I’d say - Anything that’s rendered in a many shades of purple and revolves around star seeds, Akashic records, ‘astral planes’ etc is a sure bet. Angel wings may be included as well, possibly alongside pentacles and/or other Wiccan tools. The art will often have a bit of an hallucinogenic feel to it and it tends to include lots of women with long hair and pretty gowns.  

[gregory]

I'd simply say decks with added and unrelated woo-woo..... Often but not always in pink and purple.

[Therese]

Many thanks for replying!

 

I think, I got it a little bit better. Probably my problem in understanding, too, was that it is so broad. 

 

I have a completely different feeling for "astral-plane" decks versus pagan decks. The first ones embody "love, light and peace" (for me) in a way that one could say, there is a bit of a loss of roots. And a diving into a slightly crazy realm (not all such decks, but I have to generalize for better understanding). 

Whereas in pagan decks there often is a lot of roots (at least I think so). 

 

So, I would call the first category of decks "new-agey" and the pagan ones rather not. Would you agree? 

[katrinka]

Love-n-light decks are definitely new-agey. New age prioritizes positivity over honesty. So you get decks where, for instance, the Death card has been changed to something else, like a butterfly. But Death isn't resurrection, that would be Judgement. You don't need two cards representing that. And if you make Judgement a butterfly instead, you're leaving out the trumpet blast. Altering a Tarot deck needs to be very carefully thought out.

New age tends to treat cultures like a buffet, too, where people just help themselves to what they like. So culturally appropriative decks are new agey. It's pretty ironic, since in some ways new age decks are designed to be inoffensive by not depicting Death, etc. - but then they turn around and exploit races and cultures, which is much more offensive. We have to live with death, but we shouldn't tolerate cultural appropriation.

Pagan decks are tricky, since paganism itself is sometimes new agey, sometimes not. A lot of thought needs to be put into a pagan deck. Some of them simply attempt to de-christianize the cards, which can be problematic since Tarot itself is a product of Christian Europe. It expresses universal concepts, but it uses Christian symbolism to do so. Changing the Pope to the Hierophant works, since both are a kind of intermediary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hierophant

 

But sticking deer horns on him throws it off.  Figures like Cernunnos have different associations. Again, the deck has been muddled and it becomes new age.

There's probably other things, but I can't call them to mind at present. In a 1964 Supreme Court obscenity case, Associate Justice Potter Stewart wrote that hardcore pornography is hard to define but “I know it when I see it.” Something similar is at play here. We often know it when we see it.

Edited February 5, 2022 by katrinka

[Niobium]

So a good example of a deck which IMO qualifies as new age but isn't all light and happiness is the Dream Vision Tarot:

 

 

 

It's got a heavily 80s aesthetic (which as @DanielJUK said is when the movement was strong, so that tracks) but doesn't culture sample nor reduce the more negative cards to something soft. 

 

Another example with a similar art style is the MM deck Mystic Mondays. Arguably the Lumina Tarot is also New Agey, though it has a different art style.

[devin]

 

 

Apart from the colour schemes (the importance of which cannot be underestimated), I reckon, as Katrinka pointed out, the 'no-negativity' ethos is probably one of the biggest defining features of a new age deck. Especially if one is using the term in a pejorative sense. 

 

As for the new-age itself, even many academics can't really agree on just what the thing is or if you can even define it in any definitive sense. So the posts above did a pretty impressive job. That said, I think there are a few more beliefs common to the new-age proper that haven't been mentioned (or not mentioned enough) yet. 

 

For one thing, there's the name itself, signifying a belief that the earth/universe/humanity is evolving to a higher level of consciousness characterized by love and compassion, and that our present age is a turning point in that evolution. (Y'know, Age of Aquarius and all that.) 

 

Personal authority is another big one leading to an emphasis on intuition, following your feelings, a belief that your thoughts create reality, and a move away from traditional religious and or spiritual authorities and or hierarchies. This in turn leads to the buffet approach to spirituality where one feels empowered to borrow from, reassemble and reinterpret any and all religions/spiritualties/philosophies, etc.

 

I think the new age is also generally pantheistic, following the idea that the sum total of the universe is God.

 

Typical new age practices and pastimes would include things like guides, channelling, crystals, personal development, alternative history (think Atlantis), holistic healing, UFOs, etc. etc.

 

More cynically you could say there is often a emphasis on self gratification and commercialism. 

 

And then there are the kaftans.....

[Therese]

Many thanks for your answer, @katrinka! 

 

You gave me much things to think about! I never thought about cultural appropriation - but indeed that's a good point, we shouldn't tolerate that. Thank you for the inspiring input! 

 

I get more and more a feeling for the meaning of "new age". And can imagine that "you know it when you see it". 

 

I think so far I have equated "new age" with "esoteric". 

[Therese]

20 minutes ago, devin said:

So the posts above did a pretty impressive job.

 

Absolutely agree! Thank you so much @DanielJUK, @Raggydoll and @gregory! Your posts opened the door for me! 

 

Also @Niobium many thanks! I really understand the probably new-agey point of these decks! You helped me to feel what katrinka meant with: "I know it when I see it". 

 

Thank you very much @devin! You brought it in a line, all things I read about it before (evolving to a higher level of consciousness, thoughts create the reality and so on) in connection with the insights of our forum members here. 

 

That's really cynically, that an increase in commerce and self gratification seems to be connected with it. Whereas there is an emphasis on selflessness on the other hand. 

 

Very very interesting for me as I also mixed esoteric and tarot a long time ago.... There are so many deep differences and they can go hand in hand or even opposite ways. 

 

[Therese]

I'd like to add: I'm not a pathetic person, but that it sounds like I'd be is due to the lack of my possibilities of expression in a foreign language. When I say "opened the door for me" than I mean it rather pragmatic than in a pathetic sense. 

[katrinka]

1 hour ago, devin said:

For one thing, there's the name itself, signifying a belief that the earth/universe/humanity is evolving to a higher level of consciousness characterized by love and compassion, and that our present age is a turning point in that evolution. (Y'know, Age of Aquarius and all that.)

 

One has only to glance at the headlines to debunk that. Ugh.
 

1 hour ago, devin said:

Personal authority is another big one leading to an emphasis on intuition, following your feelings, a belief that your thoughts create reality, and a move away from traditional religious and or spiritual authorities and or hierarchies. This in turn leads to the buffet approach to spirituality where one feels empowered to borrow from, reassemble and reinterpret any and all religions/spiritualties/philosophies, etc.

It's solipsistic. "Me me me." There's often a heavy dose of pop self-help, and lots of pep talk.
Books like The Secret have been huge sellers in the new age market. They tell you to just visualize what you want and it will manifest for you, or glue pictures to a "vision board." And if you don't get it, it's your fault: you weren't thinking positively. By that logic, starving people, the homeless, etc. are to blame for their problems. They had grumpy thoughts, so they "deserve" what they're going through.

And then there are people with terminal diseases, and quack profiteers like Louise Hay :

https://slate.com/human-interest/2017/09/new-age-guru-louise-hays-pseudoscience-harmed-the-aids-generation-of-gay-men.html

 

https://spiritualityisnoexcuse.wordpress.com/2017/09/12/speaking-ill-of-a-dead-cancer-quack-louise-hay/
 

It's a spectrum, of course, and not everyone who likes crystals (or whatever) is like that. Some of them are perfectly nice people. Some are sketchy, selling polished rocks at a 500% markup and making wild claims about them. And some, like Hay, are flat-out evil.

 

Edited February 5, 2022 by katrinka

[gregory]

Oh -  I forgot the decks that promise they will only give you positive messages. I could name them - there are others than DV;'s decks - but I haven't the energy. They can speak for themselves. In a very positive way.

[katrinka]

5 minutes ago, gregory said:

Oh -  I forgot the decks that promise they will only give you positive messages. I could name them - there are others than DV;'s decks - but I haven't the energy. They can speak for themselves. In a very positive way.

 

Yes. DV's decks are from Hay House. She probably decided there was more money in Christianity, since churches are tax exempt.

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47675301

It's a very similar business model.

[Therese]

@gregory: But DV's decks (and similar ones) are obvious in this category. That's why I'm really thankful for the decks Niobium mentioned. To get an idea. I don't know if other users would like to see more decks mentioned, but for me it is satisfactory. 

[katrinka]

I think virtually all of the angel decks fall in that category, as well as a lot of "oracle" decks (which are actually affirmation decks.) Lots of goddess decks, etc. As readers, it's not our job to "fix" people, and most of us are certainly not certified to practice psychology, but if someone is caught in an Eeyore-like loop of "Everything's bad, woe is me", I don't see any harm in letting them pick an angel card after the reading. But alone, these decks are often used to deny realities that need to be processed and dealt with.

And I don't view these decks as esoteric. There's no Hermeticism or any of that, they're pretty simplistic.
 

Edited February 5, 2022 by katrinka

[gregory]

15 minutes ago, Therese said:

@gregory: But DV's decks (and similar ones) are obvious in this category. That's why I'm really thankful for the decks Niobium mentioned. To get an idea. I don't know if other users would like to see more decks mentioned, but for me it is satisfactory. 

 

Yes indeed. But there are others that say they only deliver positive messages - and that is so very wrong.

 

Other than those - you are aware of the Akashic ones; there's the Aura Soma (ties to Bach remedies)...

 

Better ones would be the Jungian, the Neuzeit (which is even NAMED New Age !) ....

[Mi-Shell]

I would call the "Healing Earth Tarot a new agey deck. 

The colour pallet,

the mixing of cultures,

the different shape of the deck, the cards are much more square than other decks,

The alternate names of many of the trumps and the minors

and it has 6 suites instead of 4

Rainbows 

Feathers, 

Wands

Pipes 

Shields

Crystals

 

 

 

 

[devin]

13 hours ago, katrinka said:

Yes. DV's decks are from Hay House. She probably decided there was more money in Christianity, since churches are tax exempt.

https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-47675301

It's a very similar business model.

 

In some ways I think televangelists have borrowed quite heavily from the counterculture and new age. 

 

13 hours ago, katrinka said:

Books like The Secret have been huge sellers in the new age market. They tell you to just visualize what you want and it will manifest for you, or glue pictures to a "vision board." And if you don't get it, it's your fault: you weren't thinking positively. By that logic, starving people, the homeless, etc. are to blame for their problems. They had grumpy thoughts, so they "deserve" what they're going through.

 

I've seen some of The Secret talking heads actually come out and say it. One of them on Larry King when a woman phoned in and said her daughter had been murdered by a serial killer. Another on a program here in South Africa when the interviewer asked if they were really saying all those people living in shacks and wondering where their next meal is coming from brought it on themselves by having negative beliefs?

 

Part of me has to admire the sheer audacity of it all.

 

Of course, as you say, many new agers are nice, well meaning people. I'd even go so far as to say some of them are genuinely spiritual in their own idiosyncratic way. And if they're responsible for a societal increase in interest in things like holistic health (nutrition, stress relief, etc.) and the like, that's a good thing too.

 

13 hours ago, katrinka said:

One has only to glance at the headlines to debunk that. Ugh.

 

Stop being so negative. 🙂 

 

13 hours ago, Therese said:

I'd like to add: I'm not a pathetic person, but that it sounds like I'd be is due to the lack of my possibilities of expression in a foreign language. When I say "opened the door for me" than I mean it rather pragmatic than in a pathetic sense. 

 

I understood exactly what you meant. I also don't think you come across as pathetic in any way.

Edited February 6, 2022 by devin

[gregory]

Oh - I would also add decks that add an extra suit..... THAT feels new-agey to me.

[Raggydoll]

I think there is often a need to ‘transcend’ anything that would qualify as traditional or as ‘tried and true’. So yeah, adding an extra suit would fit the description @gregory

[katrinka]

4 hours ago, devin said:

 

In some ways I think televangelists have borrowed quite heavily from the counterculture and new age. 

 

Maybe. The basic blueprint is much older, of course. They were already making movies about it in 1931:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Miracle_Woman

 

And they both owe a lot to medicine shows:

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicine_show

("Traveling mountebanks" - holy TdM. Batman!)

 

But all three are using the same playbook. And I'm sure they nick ideas from one another. That may be part of the reason that evangelical preachers warn their flock away from Deepak Chopra and his ilk: it's essentially the same techniques and BS.
 

4 hours ago, devin said:

I've seen some of The Secret talking heads actually come out and say it. One of them on Larry King when a woman phoned in and said her daughter had been murdered by a serial killer. Another on a program here in South Africa when the interviewer asked if they were really saying all those people living in shacks and wondering where their next meal is coming from brought it on themselves by having negative beliefs?

 

Part of me has to admire the sheer audacity of it all.

 

I'd have simply wished I could yeet them into the sun.

That's a form of Calvinism, the idea that God grants prosperity to his Elect, like a cosmic ATM.

https://medium.com/inserting-philosophy/calvinism-and-the-american-conception-of-evil-b3db0a7e7f91

 

It's the idea that people are rich or poor because that's what they deserve. Calvinism even takes it a step further and says that the rich shouldn't help the poor because that would be interfering in God's plan. It's a nasty philosophy and a far cry from the teachings of Jesus, which they claim to follow.

A lot of new agers make a big deal of how they've freed themselves from the Christian dogma they were raised with, but then go on to adopt this worse form of it.

 

4 hours ago, devin said:

Of course, as you say, many new agers are nice, well meaning people. I'd even go so far as to say some of them are genuinely spiritual in their own idiosyncratic way. And if they're responsible for a societal increase in interest in things like holistic health (nutrition, stress relief, etc.) and the like, that's a good thing too.

 

To a point. Again, it's a spectrum. At one end there's complementary (I prefer that word to "alternative") medicine. Eat right, do yoga, take herbs, get acupuncture - along with Western medicine, not instead of it.

At the other extreme there's antivaxxers and their ilk. The denial of science and the attempt to drag us all back to the Dark Ages. (It's ironic that the far right has adopted these views. I remember them being sort of a hippie thing in the past.)

 

4 hours ago, devin said:

Stop being so negative. 🙂 

 

OK. *looks for Laborghini to miraculously appear in the driveway*
 

 

[Bodhiseed]

I think the New Age spirituality trend was originally a good thing, giving people a path outside of rigid traditions that pointed to interconnection rather than division. But somewhere along the line it became a movement of narcissistic self-promotion, acquisition over generosity, and toxic positivity. It makes me think of the story Krishnamurti told when he dissolved the Order of the Star:

 

“You may remember the story of how the devil and a friend of his were walking down the street, when they saw ahead of them a man stoop down and pick up something from the ground, look at it, and put it away in his pocket. The friend said to the devil, “What did that man pick up?” “He picked up a piece of Truth,” said the devil. “That is a very bad business for you, then,” said his friend. “Oh, not at all,” the devil replied, “I am going to let him organize it." 

[katrinka]

4 hours ago, Raggydoll said:

I think there is often a need to ‘transcend’ anything that would qualify as traditional or as ‘tried and true’. So yeah, adding an extra suit would fit the description @gregory

 

 Yes. They like to "innovate." It seldom if ever improves anything, it's more a combination of changes for the sake of changes (about as well-executed as "Let's put dirt on the carburetor and see how this motor runs!") and "Look at me, I did a thing!"

ETA: @Bodhiseed - that story's a keeper.

Edited February 6, 2022 by katrinka

[Therese]

20 hours ago, katrinka said:

I don't see any harm in letting them pick an angel card after the reading. But alone, these decks are often used to deny realities that need to be processed and dealt with.

And I don't view these decks as esoteric. There's no Hermeticism or any of that, they're pretty simplistic.
 

 

I agree, me too sees no any harm to use "softened" decks, quite the contrary, they can be very helpful when a person is really suffering. And I also agree, that one must not forget the reality when using "softened" decks. 

 

Hehe, I think, I know so little about esotericism that I probably mix everything with everything. Thank you very much for mentioning Hermeticism as an important influence for the development of the esoteric! So I learned a bit about the origin of Hermeticism, I googled it. 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Therese