'It's' a boy! OK it's lunchtime. Little Hawk, the reason I tend to have a go at New Age stuff are twofold - (1) a generally very touchy bullshit detector - everything from politics, to the Iraq war to the constant lies of the Tasmanian forest industry, and (2) I tend to really LIKE a lot of people who are into the New Age. With born again Christians you are dealing with hopeless cases, usually very right wing with utterly closed minds. New Agers are from the same (generally) left of centre, liberal, environmentally aware set that I am, and it cheeses me off seeing them waste their time on a phenomena which is an obvious spiritual eqivalent of western consumerism, with its fads, its fashions, its shallowness, - even the spiritual raw materials are lifted from other cultures, just as 'material' raw materials often come from exploited 3rd world countries. Both you and Carol C contend that there is a 'sensible' aspect to all this stuff, and a crazy fringe, but niether of you seems to be able to suggest how the rest of us tell the difference. Scepticism is the crucial 'honest broker' in all of this. If you can prove levitation, alternative healing etc. exists then why would I not be pleased? But you need to provide hard evidence.
      None of this has anything to do with spirituality, which is not subject to scientific tests, thank the Gods. If you wish to say, for example, that you get spiritual joy from a tree that's not subject to argument. However if you say a tree changes the colour of your aura then you need to provide some kind of backing to the argument that there is such thing as auras and that yours changes colour- not in some New Age magazine but in scientific documents in the wider public domain, so there is a motivation for attackers and defenders. Can you imagine the kudos that wouyld go to the scientists who proved some of the stuff you are into exists? Can you imagine the PROFITS to the companies that would exploit the new knowledge? Hell there goes the duty bell.
I will be joining once I get to my computer at home this afternoon.