How could the new age movement produce a major religion.

How could the new age movement become a genuine religion. In our time it produced many sects and movements but how could all the various new age movements be united in a single group with an established doctrine or be considered one religion.
 
Having a generally decent but obscure guy get martyred, leaving behind a simple set of teachings that spread as his legend grows seems to be the quickest way.
 
How could the new age movement become a genuine religion. In our time it produced many sects and movements but how could all the various new age movements be united in a single group with an established doctrine or be considered one religion.
It can't. The whole point of 'New Age' is 'do your own thing' that 'no one gets to dictate your beliefs'.

Could A genuine religion come out it? Well, yes, OTL you've got neo-paganism which is pretty much that. Also the upswing in Unitarians, Bahai, Buddhism, etc. all of which appeal far more to the New Age types than their parents' Christianity (partly, of course, because it was their parents':))

But a unified movement? That wouldn't be New Age!
 
How could the new age movement become a genuine religion. In our time it produced many sects and movements but how could all the various new age movements be united in a single group with an established doctrine or be considered one religion.

It may well do. There have been a few new religious movements that have emerged from the New Age movement. Given time they may develop into 1 or more major religions but it will take time; 100 years or more at least. The New Age Movement is only 40 odd years old. Even Islam which probably had the most rapid emergence took more than 40 years to become a major religion
 
Religious movements tend to gain momentum and direction from particular individuals. I think the New Age movement would need a figure who could offer leadership to the various entities that are grouped as 'New Age.'

I don't think that is very likely, as the New Age movement is too broad and diverse a phenomena for this.
 

OS fan

Banned
I rather think that it would be possible - in the long run, that is - that the"New Agers" - or rather, their spiritual successors - will be responsible for creating a syncretist religion in the west, mostly based on Christianity, but with Hinduist and Buddhist influences. (Better said: What westerners think these religions mean.)
 
Not exactly New Age, but I could imagine a TL in which Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters spawn a kind of religion. Maybe if Kesey himself was martyred somehow or the 60s got rough and bloody sooner, before the "graduation ceremony" in which Kesey kind of embarrassed himself and withdrew from the San Francisco community, you could have seen something closer to a lasting spiritual movement come out of it. I wouldn't say it's very likely, though; it'd require a pretty large POD.

If you're interested, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe is an excellent account of their adventures and misadventures (don't expect a history book, though, it's a "nonfiction novel" with intentionally subjective prose that seeks to capture the feeling of the Pranksters' lifestyle). Wolfe actually explicitly analyzes it as a religious movement with Kesey as a messiah and the acid tests as communal sacraments.
 
While not "New Age", Crowley's Thelema does have the potential to become something big in an alternate timeline. (Perhaps if various followers hit the big time?) Or, alternatively, if Parsons doesn't get blown up his plans for "witchcraft" could get a lot of followers.
 
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