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New Age is NOT a religion. Repeat, NOT a religionyet. And when it becomes a religion, will it be called New Age? Maybe. Maybe not. If not, then humans of this new religion will look back, fondly, I think, to the roots of their religion, to this thing we call "New Age".

Is New Age this ridiculous mlange of goofy concepts and goofy personalities? Start with some metaphysics, tarot, mysticism Throw in some occult. Add a guru or two or three or a dozen. Actually, make that 101 gurus By the way, how many gurus does it take to change a light bulb? I don't know the answer to this little Zen koan, but we have a good beginning, or so I think, to a light bulb joke.

Why is it that we question the legitimacy of New Age? Is New Age a religion? In a word, yes. But it is young, so young that perhaps you would not yet call it a religion. I believe that New Age is the beginning of a new religion. A new religion in its infancy: That's what New Age is.

Pshaw, you say. Well, you might not use that word. I don't know anyone who does. But you get my drift. Okay, let's go back to right about 40 or 50 years after the death of Christ. (Note: The physical existence of an actual Christ has not been substantiated and must be taken on faith. Ironically, though the personality Buddha is known to have existed, a Buddhist does not need to believe that Buddha actually did exist. On the other hand, a Christian must believe in the actual, physical existence of Christ, even though we have no physical proof.) Did anyone believe that Christianity would become such a powerful religion? Did anyone believe that the Catholic Church would come to dominate Europe for a thousand plus years? At the time, this was heresy. Let's recall that Christ himself was crucified. That's how the story goes, anyway. To be taken on faith. Never mind that the Dionysian myth contains all the elements or at least, most of them of the Christ story. The Christ story devoured the Dionysian myth. Christianity stomped out the heathen worshipers of the many gods. Gone to dusty backrooms in libraries, the classics and folktales and mythologies of the past. And who preserved the old tales? The scholars and the clergy! Because those old tales held power, power that could be transmuted and transformed, co-opted, made use of in the new religion, quickly becoming THE religion.

The New Age scares many people, among them, Christians. Not all Christians, but many. The Fundamentalists, of course, but others as well. New Age frightens us because

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