New Age Thinking: A Psychoanalytic Critique

Robert B. MacIntyre is head of the Centre for Relationship Therapy and
Education in Orangeville, Ontario.

According to M.D. Faber, “New Age thinking”—which he defines as
ideas about individual connection with a larger, or transcendent,
reality—is based on a regressive infantile longing for connection with
the mother. This assertion continues the tradition of psychoanalytic
criticism of religion as a psychologically primitive distortion of
mature reality. Whereas earlier writers applied their critique to
mainstream religions, Faber takes on crystal healing, shamanism,
channeling, and goddess worship. Through an analysis of one or two books
in each area and a series of interviews with individuals who hold
related beliefs, he identifies examples of magical thinking and of
desire for personal transformation in these belief systems. The same
analysis applied to most mainstream religions would find similar
evidence of “immature” thinking.

Those who want to reject New Age thought will find plenty of support in
Faber’s critique, which is by turns deprecating, angry, and sarcastic.
Students of psychoanalysis will find an interesting application of the
field. Others might find it interesting that psychoanalysis, a belief
system that has been severely criticized for being unscientific, can be
used to dismiss another set of beliefs on the same grounds.