In epidemiology and biomedicine , biological plausibility is the proposal of a causal association—a relationship between a putative cause and an outcome—that is consistent with existing biological and medical knowledge.
139-499: Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of medicine despite lacking biological plausibility , testability , repeatability or evidence of effectiveness. Unlike modern medicine , which employs the scientific method to test plausible therapies by way of responsible and ethical clinical trials , producing repeatable evidence of either effect or of no effect, alternative therapies reside outside of mainstream medicine and do not originate from using
278-602: A "tangible history", although Hanegraaff expressed the view that most New Agers were "surprisingly ignorant about the actual historical roots of their beliefs". Similarly, Hammer thought that "source amnesia" was a "building block of a New Age worldview", with New Agers typically adopting ideas with no awareness of where those ideas originated. As a form of Western esotericism, the New Age has antecedents that stretch back to southern Europe in Late Antiquity . Following
417-470: A 2018 interview with The BMJ , Edzard Ernst stated: "The present popularity of complementary and alternative medicine is also inviting criticism of what we are doing in mainstream medicine. It shows that we aren't fulfilling a certain need-we are not giving patients enough time, compassion, or empathy. These are things that complementary practitioners are very good at. Mainstream medicine could learn something from complementary medicine." Alternative medicine
556-471: A classification system for branches of complementary and alternative medicine that divides them into five major groups. These groups have some overlap, and distinguish two types of energy medicine: veritable which involves scientifically observable energy (including magnet therapy , colorpuncture and light therapy ) and putative , which invokes physically undetectable or unverifiable energy. None of these energies have any evidence to support that they affect
695-516: A coming era, at this point it came to be used in a wider sense to refer to a variety of spiritual activities and practices. In the latter part of the 1970s, the New Age expanded to cover a wide variety of alternative spiritual and religious beliefs and practices, not all of which explicitly held to the belief in the Age of Aquarius, but were nevertheless widely recognized as broadly similar in their search for "alternatives" to mainstream society. In doing so,
834-408: A corresponding increase in success of its treatments. In the 1970s, irregular practices were grouped with traditional practices of nonwestern cultures and with other unproven or disproven practices that were not part of biomedicine, with the entire group collectively marketed and promoted under the single expression "alternative medicine". Use of alternative medicine in the west began to rise following
973-442: A culture which have existed since before the advent of medical science, Many TM practices are based on "holistic" approaches to disease and health, versus the scientific evidence-based methods in conventional medicine. The 2019 WHO report defines traditional medicine as "the sum total of the knowledge, skill and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in
1112-450: A form of Western esotericism , the New Age drew heavily upon esoteric traditions such as the occultism of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including the work of Emanuel Swedenborg and Franz Mesmer , as well as Spiritualism , New Thought , and Theosophy . More immediately, it arose from mid-twentieth century influences such as the UFO religions of the 1950s, the counterculture of
1251-422: A form of "popular culture criticism", in that it represented a reaction against the dominant Western values of Judeo-Christian religion and rationalism, adding that "New Age religion formulates such criticism not at random, but falls back on" the ideas of earlier Western esoteric groups. The New Age has also been identified by various scholars of religion as part of the cultic milieu. This concept, developed by
1390-582: A human intermediary. Typically viewing history as divided into spiritual ages, a common New Age belief is in a forgotten age of great technological advancement and spiritual wisdom, declining into periods of increasing violence and spiritual degeneracy, which will now be remedied by the emergence of an Age of Aquarius , from which the milieu gets its name. There is also a strong focus on healing, particularly using forms of alternative medicine , and an emphasis on unifying science with spirituality. The dedication of New Agers varied considerably, from those who adopted
1529-405: A major and universal change being primarily founded on the individual and collective development of human potential." The scholar of religion Wouter Hanegraaff adopted a different approach by asserting that "New Age" was "a label attached indiscriminately to whatever seems to fit it" and that as a result it "means very different things to different people". He thus argued against the idea that
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#17328007109751668-582: A meeting of various figures within Britain's esoteric milieu; advertised as "The Significance of the Group in the New Age", it was held at Attingham Park over the course of a weekend. All of these groups created the backdrop from which the New Age movement emerged. As James R. Lewis and J. Gordon Melton point out, the New Age phenomenon represents "a synthesis of many different preexisting movements and strands of thought". Nevertheless, York asserted that while
1807-435: A method is proven to work, it eventually ceases to be alternative and becomes mainstream medicine. Much of the perceived effect of an alternative practice arises from a belief that it will be effective, the placebo effect , or from the treated condition resolving on its own ( the natural course of disease ). This is further exacerbated by the tendency to turn to alternative therapies upon the failure of medicine, at which point
1946-407: A new era was emerging. Other terms that were employed synonymously with New Age in this milieu included "Green", "Holistic", "Alternative", and "Spiritual". 1971 witnessed the foundation of est by Werner H. Erhard , a transformational training course that became a part of the early movement. Melton suggested that the 1970s witnessed the growth of a relationship between the New Age movement and
2085-427: A non-drug approach to treating some health conditions. In addition to the social-cultural underpinnings of the popularity of alternative medicine, there are several psychological issues that are critical to its growth, notably psychological effects, such as the will to believe, cognitive biases that help maintain self-esteem and promote harmonious social functioning, and the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy. In
2224-401: A number of New Age ideas and practices to those who fully embraced and dedicated their lives to it. The New Age has generated criticism from Christians as well as modern Pagan and Indigenous communities . From the 1990s onward, the New Age became the subject of research by academic scholars of religious studies . One of the few things on which all scholars agree concerning New Age is that it
2363-572: A particular culture, folk knowledge, superstition, spiritual beliefs, belief in supernatural energies (antiscience), pseudoscience, errors in reasoning, propaganda, fraud, new or different concepts of health and disease, and any bases other than being proven by scientific methods. Different cultures may have their own unique traditional or belief based practices developed recently or over thousands of years, and specific practices or entire systems of practices. Alternative medicine, such as using naturopathy or homeopathy in place of conventional medicine ,
2502-525: A patient's condition even though the objective effect is non-existent, or even harmful. David Gorski argues that alternative treatments should be treated as a placebo, rather than as medicine. Almost none have performed significantly better than a placebo in clinical trials. Furthermore, distrust of conventional medicine may lead to patients experiencing the nocebo effect when taking effective medication. A patient who receives an inert treatment may report improvements afterwards that it did not cause. Assuming it
2641-491: A person not diagnosed with science-based medicine may never originally have had a true illness diagnosed as an alternative disease category. Edzard Ernst , the first university professor of Complementary and Alternative Medicine, characterized the evidence for many alternative techniques as weak, nonexistent, or negative and in 2011 published his estimate that about 7.4% were based on "sound evidence", although he believes that may be an overestimate. Ernst has concluded that 95% of
2780-521: A physical effect on diseases or improve overall outcomes, but patients may report improvements in subjective outcomes such as pain and nausea. A 1955 study suggested that a substantial part of a medicine's impact was due to the placebo effect. However, reassessments found the study to have flawed methodology. This and other modern reviews suggest that other factors like natural recovery and reporting bias should also be considered. All of these are reasons why alternative therapies may be credited for improving
2919-575: A process of bricolage from already available narratives and rituals". York also heuristically divides the New Age into three broad trends. The first, the social camp , represents groups that primarily seek to bring about social change, while the second, the occult camp , instead focus on contact with spirit entities and channeling. York's third group, the spiritual camp , represents a middle ground between these two camps that focuses largely on individual development . The term new age , along with related terms like new era and new world , long predate
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#17328007109753058-580: A project funded by the CDC identified 208 condition-treatment pairs, of which 58% had been studied by at least one randomized controlled trial (RCT), and 23% had been assessed with a meta-analysis . According to a 2005 book by a US Institute of Medicine panel, the number of RCTs focused on CAM has risen dramatically. As of 2005, the Cochrane Library had 145 CAM-related Cochrane systematic reviews and 340 non-Cochrane systematic reviews. An analysis of
3197-643: A research institute for integrative medicine (a member entity of the Cochrane Collaboration ). Medical schools are responsible for conferring medical degrees, but a physician typically may not legally practice medicine until licensed by the local government authority. Licensed physicians in the US who have attended one of the established medical schools there have usually graduated Doctor of Medicine (MD). All states require that applicants for MD licensure be graduates of an approved medical school and complete
3336-538: A result of reforms following the Flexner Report of 1910 medical education in established medical schools in the US has generally not included alternative medicine as a teaching topic. Typically, their teaching is based on current practice and scientific knowledge about: anatomy, physiology, histology, embryology, neuroanatomy, pathology, pharmacology, microbiology and immunology. Medical schools' teaching includes such topics as doctor-patient communication, ethics,
3475-506: A scattered use from the mid-nineteenth century onward. In 1864 the American Swedenborgian Warren Felt Evans published The New Age and its Message , while in 1907 Alfred Orage and Holbrook Jackson began editing a weekly journal of Christian liberalism and socialism titled The New Age . The concept of a coming "new age" that would be inaugurated by the return to Earth of Jesus Christ
3614-543: A single-minded focus on the pathophysiological had diverted much of mainstream American medicine from clinical conditions that were not well understood in mechanistic terms, and were not effectively treated by conventional therapies. By 2001 some form of CAM training was being offered by at least 75 out of 125 medical schools in the US. Exceptionally, the School of Medicine of the University of Maryland, Baltimore , includes
3753-482: A synthesis of post-Theosophical and other esoteric doctrines. These movements might have remained marginal, had it not been for the explosion of the counterculture in the 1960s and early 1970s. Various historical threads ... began to converge: nineteenth century doctrinal elements such as Theosophy and post-Theosophical esotericism as well as harmonious or positive thinking were now eclectically combined with ... religious psychologies: transpersonal psychology, Jungianism and
3892-451: A television mini-series with the same name (1987); and the " Harmonic Convergence " planetary alignment on August 16 and 17, 1987, organized by José Argüelles in Sedona, Arizona . The Convergence attracted more people to the movement than any other single event. Heelas suggested that the movement was influenced by the "enterprise culture" encouraged by the U.S. and U.K. governments during
4031-952: A test which are not related to a patient's experience. These include patients reporting more favourable results than they really felt due to politeness or "experimental subordination", observer bias , and misleading wording of questions. In their 2010 systematic review of studies into placebos, Asbjørn Hróbjartsson and Peter C. Gøtzsche write that "even if there were no true effect of placebo, one would expect to record differences between placebo and no-treatment groups due to bias associated with lack of blinding ." Alternative therapies may also be credited for perceived improvement through decreased use or effect of medical treatment, and therefore either decreased side effects or nocebo effects towards standard treatment. Practitioners of complementary medicine usually discuss and advise patients as to available alternative therapies. Patients often express interest in mind-body complementary therapies because they offer
4170-404: A variety of Eastern teachings. It became perfectly feasible for the same individuals to consult the I Ching, practice Jungian astrology, read Abraham Maslow's writings on peak experiences, etc. The reason for the ready incorporation of such disparate sources was a similar goal of exploring an individualized and largely non-Christian religiosity. — Scholar of esotericism Olav Hammer, 2001. By
4309-463: A variety of quite divergent contemporary popular practices and beliefs" that have emerged since the late 1970s and are "largely united by historical links, a shared discourse and an air de famille ". According to Hammer, this New Age was a "fluid and fuzzy cultic milieu". The sociologist of religion Michael York described the New Age as "an umbrella term that includes a great variety of groups and identities" that are united by their "expectation of
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4448-431: A wide range of health care practices, products, and therapies. The shared feature is a claim to heal that is not based on the scientific method. Alternative medicine practices are diverse in their foundations and methodologies. Alternative medicine practices may be classified by their cultural origins or by the types of beliefs upon which they are based. Methods may incorporate or be based on traditional medicinal practices of
4587-539: A wider "New Age sentiment" which had come to pervade "the socio-cultural landscape" of Western countries. Its diffusion into the mainstream may have been influenced by the adoption of New Age concepts by high-profile figures: U.S. First Lady Nancy Reagan consulted an astrologer, British Princess Diana visited spirit mediums, and Norwegian Princess Märtha Louise established a school devoted to communicating with angels. New Age shops continued to operate, although many have been remarketed as "Mind, Body, Spirit". In 2015,
4726-430: Is life-itself". New Age religiosity is typified by its eclecticism. Generally believing that there is no one true way to pursue spirituality, New Agers develop their own worldview "by combining bits and pieces to form their own individual mix", seeking what Drury called "a spirituality without borders or confining dogmas". The anthropologist David J. Hess noted that in his experience, a common attitude among New Agers
4865-404: Is a profitable industry with large media advertising expenditures. Accordingly, alternative practices are often portrayed positively and compared favorably to "big pharma" . Biological plausibility Biological plausibility is one component of a method of reasoning that can establish a cause-and-effect relationship between a biological factor and a particular disease or adverse event. It
5004-464: Is a treatment with no intended therapeutic value. An example of a placebo is an inert pill, but it can include more dramatic interventions like sham surgery . The placebo effect is the concept that patients will perceive an improvement after being treated with an inert treatment. The opposite of the placebo effect is the nocebo effect , when patients who expect a treatment to be harmful will perceive harmful effects after taking it. Placebos do not have
5143-416: Is also an important part of the process of evaluating whether a proposed therapy (drug, vaccine, surgical procedure, etc.) has a real benefit to a patient. This concept has application to many controversial public affairs debates, such as that over the causes of adverse vaccination outcomes . Biological plausibility is an essential element of the intellectual background of epidemiology. The term originated in
5282-510: Is based on belief systems not grounded in science. Alternative medical systems may be based on traditional medicine practices, such as traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), Ayurveda in India, or practices of other cultures around the world. Some useful applications of traditional medicines have been researched and accepted within ordinary medicine, however the underlying belief systems are seldom scientific and are not accepted. Traditional medicine
5421-406: Is considered alternative when it is used outside its home region; or when it is used together with or instead of known functional treatment; or when it can be reasonably expected that the patient or practitioner knows or should know that it will not work – such as knowing that the practice is based on superstition. Bases of belief may include belief in existence of supernatural energies undetected by
5560-447: Is defined loosely as a set of products, practices, and theories that are believed or perceived by their users to have the healing effects of medicine, but whose effectiveness has not been established using scientific methods , or whose theory and practice is not part of biomedicine , or whose theories or practices are directly contradicted by scientific evidence or scientific principles used in biomedicine. "Biomedicine" or "medicine"
5699-540: Is difficult to define. Often, the definition given actually reflects the background of the scholar giving the definition. Thus, the New Ager views New Age as a revolutionary period of history dictated by the stars; the Christian apologist has often defined new age as a cult; the historian of ideas understands it as a manifestation of the perennial tradition; the philosopher sees New Age as a monistic or holistic worldview;
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5838-437: Is inappropriate for such therapies; it is time to assert that many alternative cancer therapies have been "disproven". Anything classified as alternative medicine by definition does not have a proven healing or medical effect. However, there are different mechanisms through which it can be perceived to "work". The common denominator of these mechanisms is that effects are mis-attributed to the alternative treatment. A placebo
5977-473: Is intricately connected as part of a single whole, in doing so rejecting both the dualism of the Christian division of matter and spirit and the reductionism of Cartesian science. A number of New Agers have linked this holistic interpretation of the universe to the Gaia hypothesis of James Lovelock . The idea of holistic divinity results in a common New Age belief that humans themselves are divine in essence,
6116-522: Is really no such thing as alternative medicine, just medicine that works and medicine that doesn't", a notion later echoed by Paul Offit : "The truth is there's no such thing as conventional or alternative or complementary or integrative or holistic medicine. There's only medicine that works and medicine that doesn't. And the best way to sort it out is by carefully evaluating scientific studies—not by visiting Internet chat rooms, reading magazine articles, or talking to friends." Alternative medicine consists of
6255-474: Is said to confer biological plausibility. Since large, definitive RCTs are extremely expensive and labor-intensive, only sufficiently promising therapies are thought to merit the attention and effort of final confirmation (or refutation) in them. In distinction to biological plausibility , clinical data from epidemiological studies , case reports , case series and small, formal open or controlled clinical trials may confer clinical plausibility . According to
6394-480: Is sometimes derogatorily called " Big Pharma " by supporters of alternative medicine. Billions of dollars have been spent studying alternative medicine, with few or no positive results and many methods thoroughly disproven. The terms alternative medicine , complementary medicine , integrative medicine, holistic medicine , natural medicine , unorthodox medicine , fringe medicine , unconventional medicine , and new age medicine are used interchangeably as having
6533-451: Is that doing so encourages dependency and conflicts with a reliance on the self. Nevertheless, within the New Age, there are differences in the role accorded to voices of authority outside of the self. Hammer stated that "a belief in the existence of a core or true Self" is a "recurring theme" in New Age texts. The concept of " personal growth " is also greatly emphasised among New Agers, while Heelas noted that "for participants spirituality
6672-703: Is that part of medical science that applies principles of biology , physiology , molecular biology , biophysics , and other natural sciences to clinical practice , using scientific methods to establish the effectiveness of that practice. Unlike medicine, an alternative product or practice does not originate from using scientific methods, but may instead be based on hearsay , religion, tradition, superstition , belief in supernatural energies, pseudoscience , errors in reasoning , propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources. Some other definitions seek to specify alternative medicine in terms of its social and political marginality to mainstream healthcare. This can refer to
6811-416: Is the characterisation of divinity as "Mind", "Consciousness", and "Intelligence", while a third is the description of divinity as a form of " energy ". A fourth trait is the characterisation of divinity as a "life force", the essence of which is creativity, while a fifth is the concept that divinity consists of love . Most New Age groups believe in an Ultimate Source from which all things originate, which
6950-402: Is usually conflated with the divine. Various creation myths have been articulated in New Age publications outlining how this Ultimate Source created the universe and everything in it. In contrast, some New Agers emphasize the idea of a universal inter-relatedness that is not always emanating from a single source. The New Age worldview emphasises holism and the idea that everything in existence
7089-601: Is when alternative medicine is used together with mainstream functional medical treatment in a belief that it improves the effect of treatments. For example, acupuncture (piercing the body with needles to influence the flow of a supernatural energy) might be believed to increase the effectiveness or "complement" science-based medicine when used at the same time. Significant drug interactions caused by alternative therapies may make treatments less effective, notably in cancer therapy . Several medical organizations differentiate between complementary and alternative medicine including
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#17328007109757228-705: The Aetherius Society , founded in the UK in 1955, and the Heralds of the New Age, established in New Zealand in 1956. From a historical perspective, the New Age phenomenon is most associated with the counterculture of the 1960s . According to author Andrew Grant Jackson, George Harrison 's adoption of Hindu philosophy and Indian instrumentation in his songs with the Beatles in the mid-1960s, together with
7367-530: The Age of Enlightenment in 18th-century Europe, new esoteric ideas developed in response to the development of scientific rationality. Scholars call this new esoteric trend occultism , and this occultism was a key factor in the development of the worldview from which the New Age emerged. One of the earliest influences on the New Age was the Swedish 18th-century Christian mystic Emanuel Swedenborg , who professed
7506-892: The Church of Satan . Although there had been an established interest in Asian religious ideas in the U.S. from at least the eighteenth-century, many of these new developments were variants of Hinduism, Buddhism , and Sufism , which had been imported to the West from Asia following the U.S. government's decision to rescind the Asian Exclusion Act in 1965. In 1962 the Esalen Institute was established in Big Sur , California . Esalen and similar personal growth centers had developed links to humanistic psychology , and from this,
7645-654: The United States Medical Licensing Examination (USMLE). There is a general scientific consensus that alternative therapies lack the requisite scientific validation , and their effectiveness is either unproved or disproved. Many of the claims regarding the efficacy of alternative medicines are controversial, since research on them is frequently of low quality and methodologically flawed. Selective publication bias , marked differences in product quality and standardisation, and some companies making unsubstantiated claims call into question
7784-559: The counterculture movement of the 1960s, as part of the rising new age movement of the 1970s. This was due to misleading mass marketing of "alternative medicine" being an effective "alternative" to biomedicine, changing social attitudes about not using chemicals and challenging the establishment and authority of any kind, sensitivity to giving equal measure to beliefs and practices of other cultures ( cultural relativism ), and growing frustration and desperation by patients about limitations and side effects of science-based medicine. At
7923-612: The human potential movement emerged and strongly influenced the New Age. In Britain, a number of small religious groups that came to be identified as the "light" movement had begun declaring the existence of a coming new age, influenced strongly by the Theosophical ideas of Blavatsky and Bailey. The most prominent of these groups was the Findhorn Foundation , which founded the Findhorn Ecovillage in
8062-421: The "New Age" became a banner under which to bring together the wider "cultic milieu" of American society. The counterculture of the 1960s had rapidly declined by the start of the 1970s, in large part due to the collapse of the commune movement, but it would be many former members of the counter-culture and hippie subculture who subsequently became early adherents of the New Age movement. The exact origins of
8201-511: The "whole" person, in contrast to the supposed reductionism of medicine. Prominent members of the science and biomedical science community say that it is not meaningful to define an alternative medicine that is separate from a conventional medicine because the expressions "conventional medicine", "alternative medicine", "complementary medicine", "integrative medicine", and "holistic medicine" do not refer to any medicine at all. Others say that alternative medicine cannot be precisely defined because of
8340-602: The 1960s , and the Human Potential Movement . Its exact origins remain contested, but it became a major movement in the 1970s, at which time it was centered largely in the United Kingdom. It expanded widely in the 1980s and 1990s, in particular in the United States. By the start of the 21st century, the term New Age was increasingly rejected within this milieu, with some scholars arguing that
8479-479: The 1980s onward, with its emphasis on initiative and self-reliance resonating with any New Age ideas. Channelers Jane Roberts ( Seth Material ), Helen Schucman ( A Course in Miracles ), J. Z. Knight ( Ramtha ), Neale Donald Walsch ( Conversations with God ) contributed to the movement's growth. The first significant exponent of the New Age movement in the U.S. has been cited as Ram Dass . Core works in
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#17328007109758618-539: The CAM review used the more developed 2004 Cochrane database, while the conventional review used the initial 1998 Cochrane database. Alternative therapies do not "complement" (improve the effect of, or mitigate the side effects of) functional medical treatment. Significant drug interactions caused by alternative therapies may instead negatively impact functional treatment by making prescription drugs less effective, such as interference by herbal preparations with warfarin . In
8757-409: The New Age bore many similarities with both earlier forms of Western esotericism and Asian religion, it remained "distinct from its predecessors in its own self-consciousness as a new way of thinking". The late 1950s saw the first stirrings within the cultic milieu of a belief in a coming new age. A variety of small movements arose, revolving around revealed messages from beings in space and presenting
8896-512: The New Age community claim to represent ancient Albanian wisdom, simply because beliefs regarding ancient Albanians are not part of our cultural stereotypes". According to Hess, these ancient or foreign societies represent an exotic "Other" for New Agers, who are predominantly white Westerners. A belief in divinity is integral to New Age ideas, although understandings of this divinity vary. New Age theology exhibits an inclusive and universalistic approach that accepts all personal perspectives on
9035-417: The New Age could be considered "a unified ideology or Weltanschauung ", although he believed that it could be considered a "more or less unified 'movement'." Other scholars have suggested that the New Age is too diverse to be a singular movement . The scholar of religion George D. Chryssides called it "a counter-cultural Zeitgeist ", while the sociologist of religion Steven Bruce suggested that New Age
9174-504: The New Age draws ideas from many different cultural and spiritual traditions from across the world, often legitimising this approach by reference to "a very vague claim" about underlying global unity. Certain societies are more usually chosen over others; examples include the ancient Celts, ancient Egyptians, the Essenes , Atlanteans , and ancient extraterrestrials. As noted by Hammer: "to put it bluntly, no significant spokespersons within
9313-401: The New Age milieu as a "religion". York described the New Age as a new religious movement (NRM). Conversely, both Heelas and Sutcliffe rejected this categorisation; Heelas believed that while elements of the New Age represented NRMs, this did not apply to every New Age group. Similarly, Chryssides stated that the New Age could not be seen as "a religion" in itself. The New Age movement is
9452-401: The New Age movement remain an issue of debate; Melton asserted that it emerged in the early 1970s, whereas Hanegraaff instead traced its emergence to the latter 1970s, adding that it then entered its full development in the 1980s. This early form of the movement was based largely in Britain and exhibited a strong influence from theosophy and Anthroposophy . Hanegraaff termed this early core of
9591-487: The New Age phenomenon had ended. Despite its eclectic nature, the New Age has several main currents. Theologically , the New Age typically accepts a holistic form of divinity that pervades the universe, including human beings themselves, leading to a strong emphasis on the spiritual authority of the self. This is accompanied by a common belief in a variety of semi-divine non-human entities such as angels , with whom humans can communicate, particularly by channeling through
9730-402: The New Age phenomenon openly embraced the term New Age , although it was popularised in books like David Spangler 's 1977 work Revelation: The Birth of a New Age and Mark Satin 's 1979 book New Age Politics: Healing Self and Society . Marilyn Ferguson 's 1982 book The Aquarian Conspiracy has also been regarded as a landmark work in the development of the New Age, promoting the idea that
9869-643: The New Age were already present by the end of the 19th century, even to such an extent that one may legitimately wonder whether the New Age brings anything new at all. — Historian of religion Wouter Hanegraaff , 1996. A further major influence on the New Age was the Theosophical Society , an occult group co-founded by the Russian Helena Blavatsky in the late 19th century. In her books Isis Unveiled (1877) and The Secret Doctrine (1888), Blavatsky wrote that her Society
10008-479: The Scottish area of Findhorn , Moray in 1962. Although its founders were from an older generation, Findhorn attracted increasing numbers of countercultural baby boomers during the 1960s, to the extent that its population had grown sixfold to c. 120 residents by 1972. In October 1965, the co-founder of Findhorn Foundation, Peter Caddy , a former member of the occult Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship , attended
10147-738: The UK National Health Service (NHS), Cancer Research UK , and the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the latter of which states that " Complementary medicine is used in addition to standard treatments" whereas " Alternative medicine is used instead of standard treatments." Complementary and integrative interventions are used to improve fatigue in adult cancer patients. David Gorski has described integrative medicine as an attempt to bring pseudoscience into academic science-based medicine with skeptics such as Gorski and David Colquhoun referring to this with
10286-418: The ability to communicate with angels, demons, and spirits. Swedenborg's attempt to unite science and religion and his prediction of a coming era in particular have been cited as ways that he prefigured the New Age. Another early influence was the late 18th and early 19th century German physician and hypnotist Franz Mesmer , who wrote about the existence of a force known as " animal magnetism " running through
10425-415: The alternative therapies he and his team studied, including acupuncture, herbal medicine, homeopathy, and reflexology , are "statistically indistinguishable from placebo treatments", but he also believes there is something that conventional doctors can usefully learn from the chiropractors and homeopath: this is the therapeutic value of the placebo effect, one of the strangest phenomena in medicine. In 2003,
10564-494: The art of medicine, and engaging in complex clinical reasoning (medical decision-making). Writing in 2002, Snyderman and Weil remarked that by the early twentieth century the Flexner model had helped to create the 20th-century academic health center, in which education, research, and practice were inseparable. While this had much improved medical practice by defining with increasing certainty the pathophysiological basis of disease,
10703-551: The band's highly publicised study of Transcendental Meditation , "truly kick-started" the Human Potential Movement that subsequently became New Age. Although not common throughout the counterculture, usage of the terms New Age and Age of Aquarius —used in reference to a coming era—were found within it, for instance appearing on adverts for the Woodstock festival of 1969, and in the lyrics of " Aquarius ",
10842-439: The body in any positive or health promoting way. The history of alternative medicine may refer to the history of a group of diverse medical practices that were collectively promoted as "alternative medicine" beginning in the 1970s, to the collection of individual histories of members of that group, or to the history of western medical practices that were labeled "irregular practices" by the western medical establishment. It includes
10981-481: The claims of efficacy of isolated examples where there is evidence for alternative therapies. The Scientific Review of Alternative Medicine points to confusions in the general population – a person may attribute symptomatic relief to an otherwise-ineffective therapy just because they are taking something (the placebo effect); the natural recovery from or the cyclical nature of an illness (the regression fallacy ) gets misattributed to an alternative medicine being taken;
11120-405: The community, with workshops and conferences being held there that brought together New Age thinkers from across the world. Several key events occurred, which raised public awareness of the New Age subculture: publication of Linda Goodman 's best-selling astrology books Sun Signs (1968) and Love Signs (1978); the release of Shirley MacLaine 's book Out on a Limb (1983), later adapted into
11259-401: The concept of a coming "New Age" and used the term accordingly. The term had thus become a recurring motif in the esoteric spirituality milieu. Sutcliffe, therefore, expressed the view that while the term New Age had originally been an "apocalyptic emblem", it would only be later that it became "a tag or codeword for a 'spiritual' idiom". According to scholar Nevill Drury , the New Age has
11398-637: The conclusions of only the 145 Cochrane reviews was done by two readers. In 83% of the cases, the readers agreed. In the 17% in which they disagreed, a third reader agreed with one of the initial readers to set a rating. These studies found that, for CAM, 38.4% concluded positive effect or possibly positive (12.4%), 4.8% concluded no effect, 0.7% concluded harmful effect, and 56.6% concluded insufficient evidence. An assessment of conventional treatments found that 41.3% concluded positive or possibly positive effect, 20% concluded no effect, 8.1% concluded net harmful effects, and 21.3% concluded insufficient evidence. However,
11537-477: The condition will be at its worst and most likely to spontaneously improve. In the absence of this bias, especially for diseases that are not expected to get better by themselves such as cancer or HIV infection , multiple studies have shown significantly worse outcomes if patients turn to alternative therapies. While this may be because these patients avoid effective treatment, some alternative therapies are actively harmful (e.g. cyanide poisoning from amygdalin , or
11676-413: The cultic milieu having become conscious of itself, in the later 1970s, as constituting a more or less unified "movement". All manifestations of this movement are characterized by a popular western culture criticism expressed in terms of a secularized esotericism. — Scholar of esotericism Wouter Hanegraaff, 1996. The New Age is also a form of Western esotericism . Hanegraaff regarded the New Age as
11815-564: The decades to come". Australian scholar Paul J. Farrelly, in his 2017 doctoral dissertation at Australian National University , argued that, while the term New Age may become less popular in the West, it is actually booming in Taiwan , where it is regarded as something comparatively new and is being exported from Taiwan to the Mainland China , where it is more or less tolerated by the authorities. The New Age places strong emphasis on
11954-535: The diversity of theories and practices it includes, and because the boundaries between alternative and conventional medicine overlap, are porous, and change. Healthcare practices categorized as alternative may differ in their historical origin, theoretical basis, diagnostic technique , therapeutic practice and in their relationship to the medical mainstream. Under a definition of alternative medicine as "non-mainstream", treatments considered alternative in one location may be considered conventional in another. Critics say
12093-488: The divine as equally valid. This intentional vagueness as to the nature of divinity also reflects the New Age idea that divinity cannot be comprehended by the human mind or language. New Age literature nevertheless displays recurring traits in its depiction of the divine: the first is the idea that it is holistic , thus frequently being described with such terms as an "Ocean of Oneness", "Infinite Spirit", "Primal Stream", "One Essence", and "Universal Principle". A second trait
12232-632: The dominant health care system. They are used interchangeably with traditional medicine in some countries." The Integrative Medicine Exam by the American Board of Physician Specialties includes the following subjects: Manual Therapies , Biofield Therapies , Acupuncture , Movement Therapies, Expressive Arts, Traditional Chinese Medicine , Ayurveda , Indigenous Medical Systems , Homeopathic Medicine , Naturopathic Medicine , Osteopathic Medicine , Chiropractic , and Functional Medicine . Traditional medicine (TM) refers to certain practices within
12371-446: The early 1970s, use of the term New Age was increasingly common within the cultic milieu. This was because—according to Sutcliffe—the "emblem" of the "New Age" had been passed from the "subcultural pioneers" in groups like Findhorn to the wider array of "countercultural baby boomers" between c. 1967 and 1974. He noted that as this happened, the meaning of the term New Age changed; whereas it had once referred specifically to
12510-487: The early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars consider it a religious movement, its adherents typically see it as spiritual or as unifying Mind-Body-Spirit, and rarely use the term New Age themselves. Scholars often call it the New Age movement , although others contest this term and suggest it is better seen as a milieu or zeitgeist . As
12649-692: The emergence of the New Age movement, and have widely been used to assert that a better way of life for humanity is dawning. It occurs commonly, for instance, in political contexts; the Great Seal of the United States , designed in 1782, proclaims a "new order of ages", while in the 1980s the Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev proclaimed that "all mankind is entering a new age". The term has also appeared within Western esoteric schools of thought, having
12788-482: The established science of how the human body works; others appeal to the supernatural or superstitious to explain their effect or lack thereof. In others, the practice has plausibility but lacks a positive risk–benefit outcome probability. Research into alternative therapies often fails to follow proper research protocols (such as placebo -controlled trials, blind experiments and calculation of prior probability ), providing invalid results. History has shown that if
12927-420: The expression is deceptive because it implies there is an effective alternative to science-based medicine, and that complementary is deceptive because it implies that the treatment increases the effectiveness of (complements) science-based medicine, while alternative medicines that have been tested nearly always have no measurable positive effect compared to a placebo . Journalist John Diamond wrote that "there
13066-612: The fact that "New Age" is a "theoretical concept" does not "undermine its usefulness or employability"; he drew comparisons with " Hinduism ", a similar "Western etic piece of vocabulary" that scholars of religion used despite its problems. In discussing the New Age, academics have varyingly referred to "New Age spirituality" and "New Age religion". Those involved in the New Age rarely consider it to be "religion"—negatively associating that term solely with organized religion —and instead describe their practices as "spirituality". Religious studies scholars, however, have repeatedly referred to
13205-507: The histories of complementary medicine and of integrative medicine . Before the 1970s, western practitioners that were not part of the increasingly science-based medical establishment were referred to "irregular practitioners", and were dismissed by the medical establishment as unscientific and as practicing quackery. Until the 1970s, irregular practice became increasingly marginalized as quackery and fraud, as western medicine increasingly incorporated scientific methods and discoveries, and had
13344-421: The human body. The establishment of Spiritualism , an occult religion influenced by both Swedenborgianism and Mesmerism, in the U.S. during the 1840s has also been identified as a precursor to the New Age, in particular through its rejection of established Christianity, representing itself as a scientific approach to religion, and its emphasis on channeling spirit entities. Most of the beliefs which characterise
13483-425: The idea that the individual and their own experiences are the primary source of authority on spiritual matters. It exhibits what Heelas termed "unmediated individualism", and reflects a world-view that is "radically democratic". It places an emphasis on the freedom and autonomy of the individual. This emphasis has led to ethical disagreements; some New Agers believe helping others is beneficial, although another view
13622-419: The impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." The preliminary research leading up to a randomized clinical trial (RCT) of a drug or biologic has been termed "plausibility building". This involves the gathering and analysis of biochemical, tissue or animal data which are eventually found to point to a mechanism of action or to demonstrate the desired biological effect. This process
13761-780: The intentional ingestion of hydrogen peroxide ) or actively interfere with effective treatments. The alternative medicine sector is a highly profitable industry with a strong lobby, and faces far less regulation over the use and marketing of unproven treatments. Complementary medicine ( CM ), complementary and alternative medicine ( CAM ), integrated medicine or integrative medicine ( IM ), and holistic medicine attempt to combine alternative practices with those of mainstream medicine. Traditional medicine practices become "alternative" when used outside their original settings and without proper scientific explanation and evidence. Alternative methods are often marketed as more " natural " or " holistic " than methods offered by medical science, that
13900-406: The internet in particular further popularized New Age ideas and made them more widely accessible. New Age ideas influenced the development of rave culture in the late 1980s and 1990s. In Britain during the 1980s, the term New Age Travellers came into use, although York characterised this term as "a misnomer created by the media". These New Age Travellers had little to do with the New Age as
14039-597: The known facts of the natural history and biology of the disease in question. Other important criteria in evaluations of disease and adverse event causality include consistency , strength of association , specificity and a meaningful temporal relationship . These are known collectively as the Bradford-Hill criteria , after the great English epidemiologist who proposed them in 1965. However, Austin Bradford Hill himself de-emphasized "plausibility" among
14178-544: The lack of support that alternative therapies receive from medical scientists regarding access to research funding , sympathetic coverage in the medical press , or inclusion in the standard medical curriculum . For example, a widely used definition devised by the US NCCIH calls it "a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products that are not generally considered part of conventional medicine" . However, these descriptive definitions are inadequate in
14317-399: The late 19th century. Hanegraaff believed that the New Age's direct antecedents could be found in the UFO religions of the 1950s, which he termed a "proto-New Age movement". Many of these new religious movements had strong apocalyptic beliefs regarding a coming new age, which they typically asserted would be brought about by contact with extraterrestrials. Examples of such groups included
14456-518: The loose terminology to give the appearance of effectiveness). Loose terminology may also be used to suggest meaning that a dichotomy exists when it does not (e.g., the use of the expressions "Western medicine" and "Eastern medicine" to suggest that the difference is a cultural difference between the Asian east and the European west, rather than that the difference is between evidence-based medicine and treatments that do not work). Alternative medicine
14595-488: The maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness." When used outside the original setting and in the absence of scientific evidence, TM practices are typically referred to as "alternative medicine". Holistic medicine is another rebranding of alternative medicine. In this case, the words balance and holism are often used alongside complementary or integrative , claiming to take into fuller account
14734-689: The movement the New Age sensu stricto , or "New Age in the strict sense". Hanegraaff terms the broader development the New Age sensu lato , or "New Age in the wider sense". Stores that came to be known as "New Age shops" opened up, selling related books, magazines, jewelry, and crystals, and they were typified by the playing of New Age music and the smell of incense. This probably influenced several thousand small metaphysical book- and gift-stores that increasingly defined themselves as "New Age bookstores", while New Age titles came to be increasingly available from mainstream bookstores and then websites like Amazon.com . Not everyone who came to be associated with
14873-502: The older New Thought movement, as evidenced by the widespread use of Helen Schucman 's A Course in Miracles (1975), New Age music, and crystal healing in New Thought churches. Some figures in the New Thought movement were skeptical, challenging the compatibility of New Age and New Thought perspectives. During these decades, Findhorn had become a site of pilgrimage for many New Agers, and greatly expanded in size as people joined
15012-578: The opening song of the 1967 musical Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical . This decade also witnessed the emergence of a variety of new religious movements and newly established religions in the United States, creating a spiritual milieu from which the New Age drew upon; these included the San Francisco Zen Center , Transcendental Meditation, Soka Gakkai , the Inner Peace Movement, the Church of All Worlds , and
15151-516: The other criteria: It will be helpful if the causation we suspect is biologically plausible. But this is a feature I am convinced we cannot demand. What is biologically plausible depends upon the biological knowledge of the day. To quote again from my Alfred Watson Memorial Lecture [1962], there was In short, the association we observe may be one new to science or medicine and we must not dismiss it too light-heartedly as just too odd. As Sherlock Holmes advised Dr. Watson , "when you have eliminated
15290-433: The pejorative term " quackademia ". Robert Todd Carroll described Integrative medicine as "a synonym for 'alternative' medicine that, at its worst, integrates sense with nonsense. At its best, integrative medicine supports both consensus treatments of science-based medicine and treatments that the science, while promising perhaps, does not justify" Rose Shapiro has criticized the field of alternative medicine for rebranding
15429-642: The period of reorganization within medicine (1965–1999) was reported as showing that the medical profession had responded to the growth of CAM in three phases, and that in each phase, changes in the medical marketplace had influenced the type of response in the journals. Changes included relaxed medical licensing, the development of managed care , rising consumerism, and the establishment of the USA Office of Alternative Medicine (later National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine, currently National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health). Mainly as
15568-425: The present-day when some conventional doctors offer alternative medical treatments and introductory courses or modules can be offered as part of standard undergraduate medical training; alternative medicine is taught in more than half of US medical schools and US health insurers are increasingly willing to provide reimbursement for alternative therapies. Complementary medicine (CM) or integrative medicine (IM)
15707-488: The propagating of New Age ideas included Jane Roberts's Seth series, published from 1972 onward, Helen Schucman's 1975 publication A Course in Miracles , and James Redfield 's 1993 work The Celestine Prophecy . A number of these books became best sellers , such as the Seth book series which quickly sold over a million copies. Supplementing these books were videos, audiotapes, compact discs and websites. The development of
15846-610: The same meaning and are almost synonymous in most contexts. Terminology has shifted over time, reflecting the preferred branding of practitioners. For example, the United States National Institutes of Health department studying alternative medicine, currently named the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH), was established as the Office of Alternative Medicine (OAM) and
15985-442: The same practices as integrative medicine. CAM is an abbreviation of the phrase complementary and alternative medicine . The 2019 World Health Organization (WHO) Global Report on Traditional and Complementary Medicine states that the terms complementary and alternative medicine "refer to a broad set of health care practices that are not part of that country's own traditional or conventional medicine and are not fully integrated into
16124-574: The same time, in 1975, the American Medical Association , which played the central role in fighting quackery in the United States, abolished its quackery committee and closed down its Department of Investigation. By the early to mid 1970s the expression "alternative medicine" came into widespread use, and the expression became mass marketed as a collection of "natural" and effective treatment "alternatives" to science-based biomedicine. By 1983, mass marketing of "alternative medicine"
16263-831: The same way as for conventional therapies, drugs, and interventions, it can be difficult to test the efficacy of alternative medicine in clinical trials . In instances where an established, effective, treatment for a condition is already available, the Helsinki Declaration states that withholding such treatment is unethical in most circumstances. Use of standard-of-care treatment in addition to an alternative technique being tested may produce confounded or difficult-to-interpret results. Cancer researcher Andrew J. Vickers has stated: Contrary to much popular and scientific writing, many alternative cancer treatments have been investigated in good-quality clinical trials, and they have been shown to be ineffective. The label "unproven"
16402-404: The scholar of religion Gordon J. Melton presented a conference paper in which he argued that, given that he knew of nobody describing their practices as "New Age" anymore, the New Age had died. In 2001, Hammer observed that the term New Age had increasingly been rejected as either pejorative or meaningless by individuals within the Western cultic milieu. He also noted that within this milieu it
16541-472: The scholar of religion Hugh Urban argued that New Age spirituality is growing in the United States and can be expected to become more visible: "According to many recent surveys of religious affiliation, the 'spiritual but not religious' category is one of the fastest-growing trends in American culture, so the New Age attitude of spiritual individualism and eclecticism may well be an increasingly visible one in
16680-644: The science of physics, as in biofields, or in belief in properties of the energies of physics that are inconsistent with the laws of physics, as in energy medicine. Substance based practices use substances found in nature such as herbs, foods, non-vitamin supplements and megavitamins, animal and fungal products, and minerals, including use of these products in traditional medical practices that may also incorporate other methods. Examples include healing claims for non-vitamin supplements, fish oil , Omega-3 fatty acid , glucosamine , echinacea , flaxseed oil , and ginseng . Herbal medicine , or phytotherapy, includes not just
16819-531: The scientific method, but instead rely on testimonials , anecdotes , religion, tradition, superstition , belief in supernatural " energies ", pseudoscience , errors in reasoning , propaganda, fraud, or other unscientific sources. Frequently used terms for relevant practices are New Age medicine , pseudo-medicine , unorthodox medicine , holistic medicine , fringe medicine , and unconventional medicine , with little distinction from quackery . Some alternative practices are based on theories that contradict
16958-400: The seminal work of determining the causality of smoking-related disease ( The Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health [1964]). It is generally agreed that to be considered "causal", the association between a biological factor and a disease (or other bad outcome) should be biologically coherent. That is to say, it should be plausible and explicable biologically according to
17097-443: The sheer diversity of the New Age renders the term too problematic for scholars to use. MacKian proposed "everyday spirituality" as an alternate term. While acknowledging that New Age was a problematic term, the scholar of religion James R. Lewis stated that it remained a useful etic category for scholars to use because "There exists no comparable term which covers all aspects of the movement." Similarly, Chryssides argued that
17236-489: The sociologist Colin Campbell, refers to a social network of marginalized ideas. Through their shared marginalization within a given society, these disparate ideas interact and create new syntheses. Hammer identified much of the New Age as corresponding to the concept of " folk religions " in that it seeks to deal with existential questions regarding subjects like death and disease in "an unsystematic fashion, often through
17375-420: The sociologist describes New Age as a new religious movement (NRM); while the psychologist describes it as a form of narcissism. — Scholar of religion Daren Kemp, 2004 The New Age phenomenon has proved difficult to define, with much scholarly disagreement as to its scope. The scholars Steven J. Sutcliffe and Ingvild Sælid Gilhus have even suggested that it remains "among the most disputed of categories in
17514-532: The strictest criteria, a therapy is sufficiently scientifically plausible to merit the time and expense of definitive testing only if it is either biologically or clinically plausible. It has been observed that, despite its importance, biological plausibility is lacking for most complementary and alternative medicine therapies. New age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during
17653-443: The study of religion". The scholar of religion Paul Heelas characterised the New Age as "an eclectic hotch-potch of beliefs, practices, and ways of life" that can be identified as a singular phenomenon through their use of "the same (or very similar) lingua franca to do with the human (and planetary) condition and how it can be transformed ." Similarly, the historian of religion Olav Hammer termed it "a common denominator for
17792-409: The term was used more widely, with scholar of religion Daren Kemp observing that "New Age spirituality is not an essential part of New Age Traveller culture, although there are similarities between the two worldviews". The term New Age came to be used increasingly widely by the popular media in the 1990s. By the late 1980s, some publishers dropped the term New Age as a marketing device. In 1994,
17931-563: The term. Rather than terming themselves New Agers , those involved in this milieu commonly describe themselves as spiritual "seekers", and some self-identify as a member of a different religious group, such as Christianity, Judaism, or Buddhism. In 2003 Sutcliffe observed that the use of the term New Age was "optional, episodic and declining overall", adding that among the very few individuals who did use it, they usually did so with qualification, for instance by placing it in quotation marks. Other academics, such as Sara MacKian, have argued that
18070-515: The use of plant products, but may also include the use of animal and mineral products. It is among the most commercially successful branches of alternative medicine, and includes the tablets, powders and elixirs that are sold as "nutritional supplements". Only a very small percentage of these have been shown to have any efficacy, and there is little regulation as to standards and safety of their contents. The United States agency National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) has created
18209-476: Was New Thought , which developed in late nineteenth-century New England as a Christian-oriented healing movement before spreading throughout the United States. Another influence was the psychologist Carl Jung . Drury also identified as an important influence upon the New Age the Indian Swami Vivekananda , an adherent of the philosophy of Vedanta who first brought Hinduism to the West in
18348-413: Was a milieu ; Heelas and scholar of religion Linda Woodhead called it the "holistic milieu". There is no central authority within the New Age phenomenon that can determine what counts as New Age and what does not. Many of those groups and individuals who could analytically be categorised as part of the New Age reject the term New Age in reference to themselves. Some even express active hostility to
18487-514: Was a theme in the poetry of Wellesley Tudor Pole (1884–1968) and of Johanna Brandt (1876–1964), and then also appeared in the work of the British-born American Theosophist Alice Bailey (1880–1949), featuring in titles such as Discipleship in the New Age (1944) and Education in the New Age (1954). Between the 1930s and 1960s a small number of groups and individuals became preoccupied with
18626-575: Was conveying the essence of all world religions, and it thus emphasized a focus on comparative religion . Serving as a partial bridge between Theosophical ideas and those of the New Age was the American esotericist Edgar Cayce , who founded the Association for Research and Enlightenment . Another partial bridge was the Danish mystic Martinus who is popular in Scandinavia. Another influence
18765-431: Was not being replaced by any alternative and that as such a sense of collective identity was being lost. Other scholars disagreed with Melton's idea; in 2004 Daren Kemp stated that "New Age is still very much alive". Hammer himself stated that "the New Age movement may be on the wane, but the wider New Age religiosity ... shows no sign of disappearing". MacKian suggested that the New Age "movement" had been replaced by
18904-480: Was renamed the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) before obtaining its current name. Therapies are often framed as "natural" or "holistic", implicitly and intentionally suggesting that conventional medicine is "artificial" and "narrow in scope". The meaning of the term "alternative" in the expression "alternative medicine", is not that it is an effective alternative to medical science (though some alternative medicine promoters may use
19043-522: Was so pervasive that the British Medical Journal ( BMJ ) pointed to "an apparently endless stream of books, articles, and radio and television programmes urge on the public the virtues of (alternative medicine) treatments ranging from meditation to drilling a hole in the skull to let in more oxygen". An analysis of trends in the criticism of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in five prestigious American medical journals during
19182-447: Was that "any alternative spiritual path is good because it is spiritual and alternative". This approach that has generated a common jibe that New Age represents "supermarket spirituality". York suggested that this eclecticism stemmed from the New Age's origins within late modern capitalism, with New Agers subscribing to a belief in a free market of spiritual ideas as a parallel to a free market in economics. As part of its eclecticism,
19321-413: Was the cause without evidence is an example of the regression fallacy. This may be due to a natural recovery from the illness, or a fluctuation in the symptoms of a long-term condition. The concept of regression toward the mean implies that an extreme result is more likely to be followed by a less extreme result. There are also reasons why a placebo treatment group may outperform a "no-treatment" group in
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