New Age Music

There is no formal definition of the New Age movement. One academic study suggests that those who sample many diverse teachings and practices from both 'mainstream' and 'fringe' traditions and formulate their own beliefs and practices based on their experiences can be considered as New Age.Rather than following the lead of an organised religion, "New Agers" typically construct their own spiritual journey based on material taken from the mystical traditions of the world's religions, also including shamanism, neopaganism, and occultism.

New Age practices and beliefs may be characterized as a form of alternative spirituality or alternative religion. Even apparent exceptions, such as alternative medicine or traditional medicine practices, often have some spiritual dimension—such as a conceptual integration of mind, body, and spirit.

The term New Age is used in a Western or modern context where the Judeo-Christian tradition and/or Positivism are dominant, so the use of "alternative" in New Age thought generally implies a contrast with these dominant religious and/or scientific beliefs. Hence, many New Age ideas and practices in the West contain either explicit or implied critiques of organised mainstream Christianity—emphasis on meditation suggests that simple prayer and faith are insufficient, and beliefs such as reincarnation (which not all New Age followers accept)—challenge familiar Christian doctrines, like those regarding the Afterlife.

New Age is a wide range of ideas and activities, from which participants in the subculture select their own preferred streams to identify with. The question of which contemporary cultural elements can be included under the name of "New Age" , or what it means, is much contested. New Age channelers, for instance, have many points of similarity with Spiritualist mediums. Many spiritual movements, such as neo-paganism and transpersonal psychology partially overlap with it. Many groups prefer to distance themselves from the possible negative connotations of the "New Age" name, such as the media hoopla and commercialism, while others prefer not to use it at all. For example, key individuals in the New Thought Movement, such as Ernest Holmes, have focused on a more scientific approach and do not share beliefs in reincarnation, magic, or channeling. Major efforts to present the New Age as a values-based sociopolitical movement included Mark Satin's New Age Politics (orig. 1976),Theodore Roszak's Person/Planet (1978), Marilyn Ferguson's Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), and Gordon Davidson and Corinne McLaughlin's Spiritual Politics (1994).