To emphasize the secularization of the modern society, the old saying goes like "There’s no more religion".
    After what I listened while attending the Conference "From New Age to Next Age" held at the University "La Sapienza" in Rome on April 29-30^th 1999, the saying "There’s no more religion" would be better turned into "There’s no more reason".
    So, those believers mocked by scientists for their faith in miracles and incarnation, death and resurrection of the Son of God, could taste a little bitter joy thinking: "It is your turn today, our beloved scientists!".
    And it is a bitter joy infact, since the age of insipience and ignorance is surely not better than the one of exasperated rationalism. We have, as they say, " fallen from the frying pan into the live coal" and the "common bad" (this time), gives "half joy" to no one.
    These were the reflections I made while observing the multicoloured showcase of protagonists who introduced themselves to the audience of the Conference.
    Actually there were two showcases: the one of the lecturers, and the one of the vendors. Distinct showcases but not separated, since one sent necessarily back to the other one. The succeding of the lecturers corresponded to the succeeding and multiplying of the vendors. And I think this image gives the idea of the two souls of the Conference.

    It was a peculiar mix of renowned personalities generally known as experts and scholars of the new "spirituality", and obscure individuals completely foreign to the "academic" or "sociological" world. Interesting characters indeed, but surely they would not have found room within the University some years ago.
    Today they gained the platform of the "Sapienza". Someone sees all this as a sign of "opening", of "democracy", "creativity". Some others see this "opening" just as a form of cultural decadence, not even a "weak thought" because it has turned to a "no thought".
    To make an example of the more colorful characters, I’d name Mr. Umberto Di Grazia (1), "meteorologist, actor and director, psychical investigator and sensitive" founder of the "Institute for the Search of the Conscience" who "discovered a number of sites, temples and Etrurian necropolis" and who was an object of study of Professor Macioti and also of Professor Mario Bruschi. The last led an experiment on the effects of Di Grazia’s techniques, with "particularly encouraging and positive results". Mr. Di Grazia’s paper was a curious mixture of ideas: we learned that we have moved from a mechanicistic model to a holistic one, and this second model is opposed by the scientific world which would defend the "social-political interests". Di Grazia in his collection of quotations of Einstein, Heinsemberg, the Gestaltpsychologie, St. Paul, Hutton, Lovelock, Laing and others, asserts the advent of a new philosophical thought in which the Gay Earth [Terra GAIA] is seen as a living protagonist. And scientists themselves would have named the earth this way. Oddly enough, Di Grazia often cites scientists: some times to criticize them, other times to support his "thesis" to the point that, while listening, I thought I sensed a sort of ambivalent attitude of love-hatred towards this category, of course "accused", at this Conference, together with the Catholic Church and "the institutional" Religions.
    And here the old saying "fellowship in woe doth woe assuage" comes to mind again.
    Another character-lecturer is Ernesto Carpintieri, "graduated in History and Philosophy at the University of Catania", provided with a "H. C. Bachelor in Psychology at the State University of Rumania" and "H.C. Bachelor in Naturopathy at the Universitas Internationalis Studiorum Superiorum ‘Pro Deo’ of New York". Carpintieri’s profession is "Reikmaster". I’m not dwelling upon the lenghty list of titles and activities of this lecturer as I do not want to run out of pages. But what is the meaning of the letters H. and C. preceding Carpintieri’s Bachelors? Do they stay for "Honoris Causa"? His paper was focused on holistic medicine. The lecturer asserted that our suggestibleness is cause of diseases, the loss of the spouse can lead to cancer, we are sensitive to the influences of stars and therefore doctors must prescribe treatements which take into account the astral influences. The only thing a doctor must care of is to advice his patient a "good astrologer", i.e. a competent one.
    I think this is a very important point within Carpintieri’s holistic point of view, as I can only imagine the problems brought to the patient if the astrologer did not know, for example, that the constellations are continuously moving and he drew his astral maps holding a mistaken zodiac (moved of approximately a month)! Another element to be carefully considered are "negative influences" of people surrounding you. In fact "... If a suffering person is near us he/she can close all our chakras...". This time the criticism isn’t addressed to scientists in general, but to the category of doctors before which "... we realized that we were not an aching liver, a crooked backbone, a tired heart. We were not there as a whole, the entirety of us. Our human history had disappeared and just our body was there...". So, once again criticism to science, always sitting on the defendant bench.
    Truly spectacular was the performance of Ma Puja Cristina, who reported on "The techniques of Wellbeing: from Ayurveda to the ‘Quantum Healing’ of Chopra." Ma Puja Cristina is really an eclectic woman: "a degree in pharmacy…firstly a follower of Osho, then of a sufi master, afterwards a buddhist ... in its various forms (zen, rinzai, Soka Gakkai), and then a pupil of Deepak Chopra (a pupil of Maharishi himself), she has practiced the Navajo teachings etc." Before starting to lecture, she involved the convention audience in a "mimed shower". People mimed a real shower, shampooing included, washing the different parts of their body etc. At the end of the shower the lecturer invited the audience to express their wellbeing. It was a great success, as many answered they were feeling truly better.
    While watching the "collective shower" I was wondering what a person looking for the University would think if he/she came in during this collective performance. Probably, uncertain on what he/she read on the plate outside the gate, the embarassed question would have been: "Pardon me, is 'The Sapienza' here?".
    The lecturer explained to us that we are not in contact with the reality but with a quantic soup, a soup of stimulations filtered by a deceptive perception. We are the ones who shape things, as they have no shape in the reality. For example, "... earth was flat and then it became round... "; what we need to do is reprogramming our perceptions, changing " the inner Universe, the material manifestation expressed by such a universe will radically change, so-called ‘incurable diseases' included".
    Another lecturer was Coboldo Melo, a.k.a. Roberto Sparagio, the journalist in charge of Damanhur press office. First he corrected Professor Macioti who made a mistake claiming that "Coboldo" is an animal (according to Coboldo, it is infact the name of an elf, or a nature spirit of the Nordic mythology, a little "pain in the neck" elf). Coboldo Melo’s report was about: "From a community to a community confederation". His paper was really practical and actual, very different from the previous ones. Coboldo stressed the importance for Damanhur to turn from a Community to a Confederation of Communities, aggregating other similar groups. What mattered Coboldo was to get the necessary legal acknowledgments needed to introduce Damanhur products on the market. The creation of "a market network" was essential, and "the market is money". Another essential element was a common currency. Moreover, Coboldo asserted that "money is a formidable motivating force, at Damanhur we are convinced that wealth is important, money is a tool for the spiritual affirmation on the matter. Once, the idea of spirituality was tied to poverty, but the ones with a strong spirit are not swept away by money... We are launching the proposal of an ethic Bank to gather money to fund eco-compatible projects...".
    Our confused spectator, if he entered the Convention hall during Coboldo’s report, would have thought to be listening to a marketing lesson, and perhaps he wouldn’t have been wrong.
    Another colorful character of the showcase was Cesare Magrini from Bracciano, an expert in "walks on the fire and ancient arches instruments which he personally manufactures, sometimes". He has been an object of study, together with his followers, of the sociologist of "La Sapienza" University, guided by Prof. Macioti and Prof. Tedeschi, lecturer at the Conference herself. Magrini did not read a paper, but played some of his works with a music background. In these musical texts, which Magrini was screaming rather than singing, lay his aggressive condemnation of the "traditional" lifestyle and way of thinking. This time the condemnation didn’t save the so-called New Age of stalls and sellings, just the ones displayed next to the Convention hall. Magrini’s "accusation" against "tradition", "medicine", the "powers", the "compulsory education", "ecology", even against birthdays, in which "the bodies of the celebrated are eaten, masking them as cakes" became particularly violent when it was addressed to the "Religion". The "power of the sacred" religion, the one of the "thousands of pilgrims visiting the residential dominions of the new Boniface", those who like "to perpetrate the ritual of the confession on the Roman soil" and who, obviously, are not able to appreciate the taste of true spirituality, the one of Magrini’s and his followers.
    Surely the originality of this "paper" was its "condemnation" to everyone, nobody excluded, and its attitude of uncommon intolerance and depreciation. I think I witnessed a truly rare event, and not only for the (unbearable) quantity of decibels accompanying Magrini’s texts (the "music" was so loud and troublesome that some people showed up and asked to lower its volume) but also for the positive reactions it produced in the bystanders. They clapped their hands and others, like Professor Macioti, publicly expressed their appreciation.
    One wonders: why Magrini, who bitterly condemns the compulsory education, the institutions, the ordinary and the establishment was self-advertising inside a State University? Institutions are to be condemned, demolished, but used when they serve the purpose.
    The same has to be applied to the ones who, while organizing Reiki seminars or whatever New Age activities, very gladly carry them out in convents, abbeys, parishes where they have the chance to be known and sell their products. They then condemn the Catholic Church as an "authoritarian model" and the Holy Father who, according to Valcarenghi is "a great politician", giving to this definition a strongly negative connotation.
    Together with these and other similar characters, the Conference was attended by lecturers and scholars of CESNUR, or coming from different universities like the University Roma Tre, the University of Trieste, the University of Turin, the University of Bari and Maria Immacolata Macioti, University "La Sapienza".
    The contributions of these lecturers was interesting and raised a bit the level of the Conference. The far roots of New Age are to be searched into the esotherism and the occultism, which today come up again in a different form, but identical in its substance. The passing from the New Age to the Next Age would consist in the abandoning of the idea of the New Age, and in the internalization of the spiritual search. It is a sort of extreme individualization of a movement that, initially, had a global perspective and embraced very wide aspects of the social reality.
    However, the evolution that’s taking place seems not to concern the movements leading characters, some of which, questioned during a debate on this topic, refused to answer, just offering people who asked for explanations an amused smile. This is the way Ma Puja Cristina and Judith Faulkner reacted to the question about the passing from the New Age to the Next Age, that was exaclty the subject of the Conference.
    Their reaction confirmed me a feeling that was growing inside as the Conference went on: it seemes that the showcase of the lecturers was clearly divided into two sections: the one of the scholars and the one of the protagonists. This Conference was a monologue performed in company, rather than a dialogue between the two parts. And while scholars generally attended the protagonists’ performances, just a few of the lattest stopped and listened to the scholars’ reports.
    Among scholars I would point out, for its originality, the contribution of Fabio Perrocco - University of Trieste - who introduced a paper entitled "The ethics of syncretism and the spirit of Capitalism". Perrocco highlighted in a very precise way how the different dissemination centers of "new age" products answer to the logic of the market, and how they use operators who disseminate goods and services on the territory. They put the consumer before their offer of salvation, which is different and more attractive. Another interesting presence was Federico del Sordo’s one - Conservatory of Music "Saint Cecilia" in Rome, who introduced a contribution about "Music and the New Age".
    Concerning the fairy tale played by Rosaria Maria Omaggio (an Italian actress very much involved in the New Age) given the level of certain papers I think that her intervention was one of the best contributions.

    Stalls selling books, or displaying different objects and leaflets advertising various activities, multiplied as the Conference works went on.
    Damanhur gained its own space where books of Airaudi, several objects and advertising of their classes could be found. The leaflet explaining the products named "Self" was particularly interesting. "Selfs" are spirals of energy. As one of the leaflets I collected on Damanhur stall said, and not everybody included the undesigned knew, "Selfic is an ancient science based on one of the basic shapes of our universe: the spiral. Self means spiral and selfic is the practical use of windings and metals in order to concentrate and direct vital energies." The leaflet advertised a number of objects based on this principle (forgetting to report their prices): bracelets for the aura that strengthens the aura of the ones who wear them, radioactivity bracelets that protects the aura against the atmospheric pollution, they prevent ulcers and hypertension; however, one must wear it al least 6 hours a day and at the right wrist. Moreover, there were "selfs" for cars and travelling: put on the dashbord, they act to avoid the driver’s carelessness; selfs for plants; selfs for children to protect their aura – if worn on the stomach during the pregnancy they help the formation of the child. Selfic saucers that improve the contact during medianic sessions. Selfs for the memory: they must be inside a yellow bag if worn by men, and into a blue one if worn by women. Cheerfulness selfs, and selfs for painful menstruations etc.
    There was also a stall advertising several offers, among which the Homo Sapiens Academy and its formation courses (estetic–spirit haling, psychology-spirit healing, spirit healing-osteorestructuring, evolutionary psychology, management of energy, spirituality, cosmo-energetics, etc). Moreover, the multimedia Center of traditional and modern esoteric sciences, the cultural Association "Alice" and its REIKI classes, the Cheiron Association with its courses in "Bach’s flowers" (that is therapy based on flowers in order to recover from diseases), the Center of Studies on the human energy (self-control courses, non-verbal communication, self-training, reiki, shiatsu and crystal-therapy), The magazine "Il Re Nudo", sold with or without CD-ROM, whose director, Majid Valcarenghi, one of the lecturers, is a 22 years long follower of Osho. And more: brochures of the works of Rino Capitanata, a surrealist painter, new age music composer and multimedia artist, who raised the final part of the Conference spirit with his music, good also to accompany crystal-therapy sessions.
    Beyond all this, of course, there was the bigger bookstall reserved to the titles of the various new age world exponents, displayed together with books on the topic written by some of the scholars who lectured at Conference.
    The products displayed were surely more than the ones I mentioned, but I think that my description is enough to understand the variety of this offer of pay-and-get-your-spirituality where everything is spiritual and there is no more distinction among science, faith, music, magic, technology. Everything is true and everything is false, everything is possible and feasible, whichever evil can be defeated with the power of the human energy become omnipotent, just like we said of God once, when we still believed in His existence.
    But today, the man constructs, buys, sells the salvation from its evils (psychological, moral and spiritual), without anymore need of God. Almaightiness, trascendence, omniscience are attributes of the new age-man, who has no more dreams because he himself became his own dream.

Was the "proceedings" by the "Insipience Court" a regular one?
The defendands were present: Science and Religions.
Public prosecutors were present: the exponents of the new age world.
The judge was present, and hovered with its mysterious presence about the court: the living organism GAIA.
The jury was present: it was composed by the consumers of the new age products.
The only ones lacking were the defending counsels of the poor defendants

It has not been a fair judgement.

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